John Doe
by Dirtyhands
Summary: John wants to try living a normal life. He enjoys some aspects of no longer being in the armor, other things he misses, like his blue girl. It's easier for him to let go of ONI than it is for ONI to let go of him.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: The Halo universe isn't a primary fandom of mine but the characters caught my attention. This is an old story I wrote years ago which I recently found. With that in mind, please be gentle if my interpretation of the characters doesn't match yours. I'm playing with them and thought I'd share in case anyone else would enjoy this. Likely, this will appeal to a more female audience.**

* * *

Once this briefing was over he didn't know what to do. Doctor Halsey was eyeing him across the table. He suspected she knew what he was thinking. He'd already had a Psyche eval and a two week round of counseling sessions, and they couldn't think of any good reason to hold him on base anymore.

What was left of the Covenant wouldn't be his problem. The Flood wasn't expected to be a threat either. There was a new department dedicated to monitoring that situation and John was only a backup tool, on-call, rather than on-duty. For the first time in a very long time, John was about to be turned loose among humanity.

This entire pseudo-briefing was a sort of parental lecture from the powers that be that he better learn to behave like a 'normal' human and pretty damn quick. Shop for food in a grocery store. Check. Pay your utility bill. Check. Don't get in fights unless you're wearing armor and we told you to. Check.

He supposed it was to be expected. Admiral Hood had made the mistake at the honor ceremony, which he hadn't wanted, of asking him what small thing humanity could do for him to possibly repay him for his service. There in front of the global media, John had asked to be given a chance at a normal life. Several of the UNSC brass and the ONI media representatives had had a hard time holding a civil face in front of the recording devices. He knew he asked the impossible. But then, he also knew he had accomplished the impossible.

Hood had had no choice but to publically agree. John had at first felt like an idiot, appearing on the media at all, especially in full armor. Now he was glad no one had seen him. Not a soul other than those who were sworn to secrecy knew what Spartan 117 looked like under the shell.

Once released, he left the gray conference room. The ONI operatives who had just lectured him like a child now made a show of patting him on the back and wishing him luck. He knew they were terrified he'd screw up. It was their asses if something went wrong.

Catherine looked up from her work station when he darkened her door. He could tell she hadn't been focusing much on her work, anyway. She was nervous about something.

"John!" She came to hug him and he relished the pleasant smell of her hair. It was nice to smell clean, organic things. Like women. He carefully hugged her back, then smiled at her a little but his eyes were drawn to the flicker and form of his blue friend appearing over her holopedistal.

"Hey." He couldn't take his eyes off her somber form.

"John." Cortana's tone wasn't any happier than his.

"John, come inside," Catherine urged, pulling him by the elbow and closing the door.

Cortana nodded to her creator and Catherine, really a sort of mother to both of them, lowered her voice as if it would be a terrible thing for someone to hear her through the steel door. There was surveillance everywhere but Cortana couldn't be kept out of anything. What she couldn't prevent, she could erase or corrupt or edit.

"I'm working on something," Dr. Halsey assured him earnestly.

"Of course you are. Can I have a moment with…" John gestured toward the AI.

God, this was hard. He just waved a hand at Cortana's pedestal. He had been strongly encouraged for two weeks to refer to his closest friend as only "the AI".

"In a moment. Listen, I know what they told you. I think I may have a work around. This AI does not belong to you-"

"She doesn't belong to anyone."

"As I was saying, John, this AI can't leave to go with you. But they don't know this AI like we know Cortana. I am very close to replicating her into a new version they won't be able to tell from the real AI."

"But won't that shorten her time? As much as I'd love that, I won't cut her life shorter so I can have a copy."

"It won't be a copy," Cortana insisted, "I'll come with you, wherever you go. Catherine is making an entirely new AI, a nearly identical twin which will stay here. They'll never know."

John moved to Cortana's pedestal. She voluntarily matched her visual size so that they were eye level.

"I don't need a babysitter to find a job. Or to wipe my ass. It's not like Flood spore are going to be hopping around in my kitchen. Wherever that will be. I won't be wearing armor, Blue. And I won't be staying near a network. I don't see how it's gonna work," he said.

Much as he would feel the emptiness echo in his head, and he already did, there was no point pining for her like a pup. Better if they made a clean break. Her luminous eyes scowled at him briefly, then smiled.

"Don't play dense. You know Catherine will find a way. Unless you just don't want me around," Cortana teased.

Her posture was playfully pouty, but they had known each other long enough for him to see through her bravado. He looked around. Catherine nodded at him and left the lab, closing the door behind her.

"You know I want you, Cortana. More than I should."

He leaned on her pedestal, into her space. He couldn't feel a thing, but her cool blue hand came up to caress his face. She looked sad.

"Then trust us. You'll see." Her form bent to kiss his nose. He couldn't help but smile at her pointless gesture.

It was almost time to go. At 1600 hours, he was leaving base among a routine shift change of Marines. A corpsman of similar enough size was staying a double shift so John could leave in his fatigues and hopefully avoid a media frenzy. Nobody had been told when he was leaving for his requested 'normal life', but apparently someone had leaked which base he'd be leaving from. There was a constant light media presence in the departure lot, hoping to get a shot at the elusive Spartan 117.

It was hard to tear himself away from Cortana. He didn't know when he'd see her again. Sure, he'd be making contact with Dr. Halsey's staff for updates, and Hood had a direct line to him just in case humanity needed saving again. Routine visits to base would not be possible, at least for a few years until his reputation faded a bit in the public memory.

The shrinks had driven home to him over and over, through elaborate mental exercises, how 'the Artificial Intelligence you know as Cortana' was nothing more than a program, lines of code with no more than a utilitarian purpose. The way her small blue body trembled almost imperceptibly when he exhaled through her image told him it was more than that. He had the desire to run a finger along her curves, but knew he would feel nothing except cool blue frustration. He closed his eyes.

"Go and live your life, John. I want you to be happy. You deserve it. I'll be here if you need me."

* * *

Karlton James Fanning was his name now. He hated it, but it was nothing that would ping a link in any kind of database. He'd taken a job in North America's Rocky Mountain National Park.

There was no way he could deal with the average camper. Tall as he was, and with his augmentations, anyone would know he was different. Then people would start thinking, and then people would show up in crowds when the speculation went public, and then he'd be back to living confined to base. Instead they'd given him a truck and a radio. His job was to monitor remote wildlife and geological stations around the park.

John, or "Karl" as his new co-workers called him, got out of his truck and slammed the door. He winced. It was his fourth day on the job and he'd already torn the truck up pretty badly. He knew it wasn't an all-terrain vehicle, but hours rumbling over rugged terrain in a warthog sometimes overcame his muscle memory. He'd become very familiar with changing blown tires and bending dents out of the truck's frame and body panels.

The geo station he was supposed to get data from was down a rocky incline at the bottom of a streambed. John looked around. The crisp fall morning was bright. The terrestrial sun seared through the dry blue sky and onto his skin. He took a deep breath scented with pine and the dusty stone smell of the earth baking in the sun. There were no hiking trails nearby. Not even equestrian trails. Without Cortana in his mind, he'd spent days memorizing the grid maps of the park. There was nobody for miles around.

He felt numb and over-sensitized at the same time. There was no information feeding into his consciousness for him to base his every move and decision on. Every move he made felt like an intolerable mystery. Instead of how much ammo he had left for his weapon, he had to think about how much water he'd brought to fend off dehydration. He had to remember his ranger hat and his sunglasses and his sunblock. There was one simple goal for the entire day… retrieve data packets from geo stations 255, 178, and 1023. Included in every day's goal was the directive to avoid dehydration and sunburn.

The wind blew against his skin, pushing at the short hairs on the nape of his neck under his hat. He suppressed a shiver. The feel of the wind moving his hair was like the blade of a weapon scraping at the back of his neck. John leapt down the rough, rocky incline like a mountain goat. He'd gotten accustomed to moving without the weight of his armor in the few weeks since he'd been released, but he still felt the novelty of lightness when he made long leaps across the land. His muscles wanted to brace and push against the weight of a half-ton of armor and gear, but he had to remember that he was coming down light. Good thing no one had been watching the first time he'd made a jump like this. He'd sprang back up, windmilled his arms like an idiot, and crashed down onto his side. He still had the scrapes and scabs on his left arm.

His civilian boss had assigned him the stations that none of the other rangers wanted to check. John got the climbing that usually required rigging or helicopters or dealing with grumpy, territorial wildlife.

John squatted at the streamside and waved his data device over the station. The 'bleep' it made and the numbers which flashed on the display showed that the station hadn't been checked in three months. This station was supposed to be checked weekly.

He should hurry on to the next station, some fourteen miles away. It likely was long overdue for a data upload too. Instead, John stayed squatting where he was over station 225. He reached his pale white hand down and waved his fingers in the cool stream water. That, too, made him shiver. The water was only halfway up his fingers, but he felt what seemed like every particle of water brushing past his skin.

A faint sound caught his attention and he snapped his head to the right. A huge elk shouldered through the brush and bent to drink only twenty yards away from him. His adrenaline surged for an instant. Things that large usually required action on his part, but this job demanded that he leave the alien fauna unmolested and alive.

John shook his head. All things alien felt like the norm to him. Existing in an Earth environment was the alien experience he was learning to adjust to. These last few days he'd seen snakes, scorpions, spiders, elk, deer, bear, skunk and people. Of all of them, the people were the most dangerous to him. Animals didn't care that he wasn't a normal human. The animals weren't curious or malicious. It was people, like overweight grannies with cameras and little kids with scraped knees that he had to worry about.

He stood up. The elk lifted its head, water dripping from its lips. It looked at him. He looked at it. John turned and leapt back up the slope to his truck. The elk spooked and ran off into the brush.

When he got back into the driver's seat he remembered to close the door of the truck more gently. John grit his teeth and leaned his head back against the glass of the back window. At a moment like this, she would likely have made a dry remark about him learning to take care of the primitive hardware. There was a particular feeling of emptiness in the deep base of his brain. It was an unsoothable ache he didn't think he'd ever get used to.

John shook his head and pressed the pedal and began the drive to geo station 178. He gently touched the radio button and let the noise of the ranger chatter try to distract him. It wasn't anything like the voices of marines on comm. These people were too relaxed and happy. He needed the white noise to keep the hope for her cool, sweet voice from making him insane.

* * *

The grocery store. John clenched his jaw until his teeth creaked. It was 02:17. The shopping cart had a wobbly wheel because the frame of the cart was slightly bent. John propped his toe under one wheel and braced his hands on two opposite corners of the cart. With only a little pressure, the frame straightened and the cart rolled smoothly when he pushed it ahead of him. A scruffy-looking old man who reeked of alcohol looked at him, wide-eyed while he went through the produce section.

John nodded to the guy and went deeper into the store. He'd tried shopping at 10:00 and at several other times of the day, but after midnight seemed to be the best time to get his food if he didn't want much attention. His body craved heavy meats and carbs but he'd been warned during Terrestrial Orientation and Health that he should avoid unneeded calories unless he wanted to weigh four hundred pounds instead of two-ninety.

Shopping for food was even more excruciating than working in terrain during his day job. It wasn't so easy to damage rocks and trees as it was to crush produce or a cart handle. He'd already wasted credits on things he didn't intend to buy, but felt compelled to because he'd damaged them. Real food was much more squishy and fragile than ration bars.

He was too tired to care what he ate tonight. He'd been warned to monitor himself for the depression and low morale that was expected to develop. Tossing E-Z mealz into his cart carelessly without even reading the flavor labels was a pretty good indicator of unhappiness, but wasn't as bad as thinking about swallowing a plasma beam. Not that he had access to a plasma beam, but he knew enough people to make it happen if he made the right calls. Instead, he satisfied himself with crunching the corners of the packages roughly against the cart.

Maybe he hadn't fully considered his idea of trying to live a 'normal' human life. His days were almost as dull as cryo-sleep and the nights were worse. John was accustomed to hours of hard-pressed stamina and adrenaline, followed by indeterminate times of exhausted oblivion. What he now had was days of light activity followed by mostly sleepless nights.

A pimply teenage girl was running the store in the small hours of the night. No matter the level of automation, there was always a glitch that needed fixing. She sat on her stool, bored and reading a text that glowed blue in front of her eyes. John could see the lines of message flying in front of her face as she read and thought her responses to her friend.

She'd seen him a few nights ago and tried some awkward conversation with him. John wasn't eager for a repeat of that. Her eyes widened as he neared the boxing station and exit door. Before John could get his food boxed and through the scanner arc her text screen temporarily went blank, then flashed a stream of bold blocky letters to her friend.

He'd been coached on how to interact with civilians as if he was one, so John tried a smile and a little wave to the kid in her kiosk. He knew she was trying to take a pic of him to share. His remaining neural hardware was set to disable civilian optic devices. The most she'd get would be a blurry image of his general shape. A brief thought crossed his mind, wondering if the grocery store girl was an ONI hire, there to observe him. He shook his head slightly and tamped down his paranoia.

John took his groceries to the truck and drove up the hillside to his sturdy little timber house. The place was surrounded by trees and boulders, which was soothingly familiar. It was easy to imagine grunts and energy shields tucked into the natural landscape, but only terrestrial items were around his house. When he pulled the truck into the garage and the entry lights came on, a stray cat ran off. John watched it go, then set the brake.

The house door opened automatically while the garage door closed. He took the box of groceries into the kitchen and slid it into the cooler receptacle. There were some muted sounds, then the whoosh of the grocery box heading back out the main road for pickup in the morning.

John took out three cartons of food, put them in the cooker and pressed the button. He had the hallway lighting set on a soothing, dim glow. He took his time undressing in the bedroom and toeing off his work boots.

The windows were shuttered for privacy. Nobody else had a house out this way from town, anyway. He was the only one with a permit to have a residence on this hillside. The security pad by the doorway showed that nothing but wild animals and the stray cat had come around all day while he was gone.

John ran his fingertips roughly over his scalp and groaned. It felt indulgent, almost pornographic to rub his hands over his bare skin. He looked down his torso at his pale skin. Just like his scalp, his dark pubic hairs were short from only recently being allowed to grow. His muscles were still hard and toned because of the two hour-long PT sessions he put in every day.

On the way to the shower he enjoyed the cool feeling of the floor tiles under the soles of his feet. He scrubbed his hands over his sides and flat belly just because he could. There was no one around to jibe at him about wasting time playing with himself. No other soldiers, no command, no doctors or shrinks. No blue girl.

He stepped into the open shower and the gentle spray of water came on at his preferred temperature. There were more than a hundred settings for the shower spray nozzles but anything too interesting was more than his nerves could handle at this point.

The gel dispenser put a dollop of cleanser in his hand and he lathered himself briskly. He tried his best not to get hard during his quick, rough shower. The sensations were too much and he wasn't nearly exhausted enough to ignore them.

There'd been briefings on sexual health. Daily masturbation was recommended, but John wasn't easy with the idea yet. Self-indulgence felt like a weakness, like a distraction that could get him killed. There was no one to watch his back. He knew he was supposedly secure in his house. He shouldn't need somebody on watch so he could let his guard down for a moment. Still, he left himself alone until later. John grit his teeth while he toweled off. The texture of the towel on his skin was more intense than his soapy hands had been.

His house bot had already hummed by to collect his sweaty ranger uniform and boots. It came into the bathroom to get his damp towel. He carefully braced his hands on the milky-white glass countertop and looked into the mirror.

He'd not yet seen another person who was as pale as himself, except for maybe one of the techs back on base. The woman had colorless hair and blood-red eyes, so he was sure she wasn't a valid comparison point for normal human skin tone.

John's eyes were dark blue and his hair was a shade somewhere between brown and black. It just as well be black, as short as it was right now. Every scar on his skin brought back memories of combat, all of which was on file for review if he chose to look at it. He didn't need to. The pain was enough to remember. The latest and maybe last scar was on his side under his left arm. It was still the deep purple of fresh healing.

Looking at himself was like looking at a statue. There was no expression on his face. He looked dead. Impassive. The girl at the grocery store seemed to like the way he looked. He tried a smile at himself, like the one he gave to her. The smile was more of a grimace. It looked like a baring of teeth. Nothing friendly about it. He tried a bigger smile, until the corners of his eyes crinkled. Now he looked mildly insane as well as unfriendly. John sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, trying to erase all hint of the forced facial expressions. Dead and impassive was an improvement.

Like a rebellious teenager, he refused to put on the shorts and comfortable shirt his house bot had laid out. In a few minutes when he failed to get dressed, the bot would store the clean clothing away again. John walked back to the kitchen and took his food out of the cooker.

He sat at the bar and turned on the AV screen. What passed for civilian entertainment seemed worse than foolish to him. The news channels were morbid enough to suit him. It felt like freedom to see all the troubles on the news and know it wasn't his responsibility to do anything about it. All he had to concern himself with was preserving the species that lived in the national park system.

A 'ping' sounded and Halsey's name appeared on the screen.

"Hey," John responded in order to open the comm.

The kitchen bar between him and the screen hid the lower half of his body. Halsey had long ago seen everything he had, anyway.

"Still haven't adjusted to normal hours, I see," she smiled faintly.

He chewed, swallowed, and took a drink to wash his food down. He shrugged.

"As long as I'm to work at 09:00, it doesn't matter," he said.

He refused to ask about the AI he considered his. He finally had the data recorder removed from his head, and he'd insisted that the house be free from AI and surveillance. As far as ONI knew, he no longer thought about her. They didn't know about his lack of sleep and he didn't report it.

Halsey studied him in companionable silence for a moment. She didn't say anything else, so he resumed eating and waited for her to mention whatever she'd called about.

"Playing naturalist, John? What if somebody comes to visit you?"

"The only company I've had is a stray cat. I'm not worried," he assured her.

They both knew he could move fast enough to get dressed if he heard the proximity alert.

"Sleeping alright?" she asked him mildly.

He shrugged. Nobody expected him to have a perfectly smooth transition to civilian life, so a small admission of imperfection shouldn't be too much to concern his keepers. They said they'd watch him for a year. He was almost three weeks down, forty-nine more to go. It's not like he wasn't used to living every minute being watched or recorded, but his fondest hope for the future was that someday he could be free of it all. The problem was determining if he would ever really, truly be free of them or if they would only let him think he was free of them. Thinking about that too much made him feel aggressive, so he forcibly set aside those thoughts.

"I can see that you're busy, but…" Halsey said.

She turned her face away and appeared to check some other displays. With a conspiratorial smile, she pulled a work cart into view then disappeared from view, herself.

Cortana's glowing blue form appeared from a projection disc on the cart. Instead of immediately turning gracefully to him as he expected, her form fell into a kneel and clutched at her head. John heard a whine of apparent pain and he shoved his stool away. The metal seat hit the kitchen wall hard and stuck there in the timber.

He leaned forward over the bar for an instant until he reminded himself that there was nothing he could do for her.

"Cortana," he said, low and encouraging.

Her form rotated to face him and her head tilted up slightly. She glitched, but when she normalized again she was able to get up from her kneeling position and look at him. Her expression went from a wince of discomfort that looked like a headache, to a hopeful smile, and then back to pain again.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he heard only a distorted data screech. She shut it again and lifted a hand toward him in a helpless gesture.

"I've got her running some unusual simulations," Halsey's voice said to him, "She can't communicate very well right now, but she let me know that she wanted to see you. I've had to re-construct her in a much smaller system and she's lost over ninety-eight percent of her capacity. Even at two percent, she remembers you."

John looked at the blue girl on the AV. Was that his Cortana? Was less than two percent of her even _her_ anymore? She seemed a construct more of feelings and raw pain than of intelligence. He felt his face tense up while she grimaced, then tried to smile at him again.

"Jo-o-o-o-o-h-n," her voice dragged out his name in a digitized squeal, barely recognizable. Her face twisted in disappointment and he felt for her efforts. Was she so diminished that even speech was too difficult for her?

"I don't like you playing with her like this," he told Halsey.

"It's not play, John. I told you I'm working. I've got her in an isolated, personal memory bank. It's taking longer than planned because of the restrictions I have to work within. This isn't the only task I have, and I'm putting in as many hours as I can. So is she. Have patience with us," Halsey implored.

"Hasn't she been through enough? Let her rest. You might lose what you've been able to save if you keep at whatever it is that you're doing," John grumbled.

Cortana's brow quirked at him with some attitude, despite her obvious discomfort. He smiled at her, or whichever remainder of her he was looking at. Again, his body swayed toward her over the bar. Halsey noticed his fragile, encouraging smile and the leaning posture of his body, even if he didn't. It was strange to see him smile, to see him acting like a man instead of a soldier. She was wiser than to point any of it out to him.

"What are you doing with her, exactly?" John asked.

Cortana seemed to have gotten herself under control, but she wasn't trying to talk anymore. She stood with her arms crossed under her breasts and watched him as he watched her.

"We're trying to stabilize her memory, sector by sector, and implant it into a newer system without the faults. A newer system with more longevity. The greatly reduced capacity is working very well. She couldn't run a small city, much less what she used to do. It's a considerable loss, but if we can accomplish our goals she'll be stable and durable," Halsey explained.

"And stuck in a lab system. To what purpose, Doctor Halsey? Why are you doing this?" John asked.

While he spoke, Cortana's form arced back in agony, then she bent forward like a person about to heave her guts up.

Halsey stayed away from where John could see her. The empathy on his face tugged at emotions she rarely let herself feel. Of all her life's work, this battered man and his blue companion were the only constructs which made her feel anything anymore. She wondered if she had any real humanity left, aside from her secretive work with these two. She'd likely never again see the outside of a cell if ONI caught her at her after-hours work.

"John, again, I ask you to have some faith and patience in us. There are some here who don't give up so easily as the rest," Halsey told him.

He wasn't listening to her. She watched him scowl and wince as Cortana suffered through the strain to appear for him.

"I'm going to let her rest now. Don't talk about her after she's down," Halsey said.

Just before Cortana disappeared, she looked clearly at John and lifted a hand. He nodded to her briefly. If what he was seeing was any true remnant of his girl, she'd understand. A little smile bent the corner of her mouth, then she winked out of sight.

"Try to get some sleep, John," Halsey said in a motherly tone.

He looked at her and crossed his arms.

"Or not," Halsey conceded.

Her comm faded back to the news channel that he'd been watching.

John frowned at the AV, then at the remains of his meal. Neither held his interest anymore.

"Off," he said, and the AV disappeared.

With a carefully controlled sweep of his hand, he moved his E-Zmeal into the waste receptacle.

* * *

Almost a week later, exactly on schedule, John appeared for his physical therapy. He parked the truck around back and the door opened for him. It was a local business in his little town, but a new rear entry hall had been added on just for his convenience and anonymity.

"Mister Karl, we're ready for you," Lillian said pleasantly as soon as he walked in the door.

"Drop the 'Mister'," he told her for the third time.

As usual, the pretty blonde only smiled at him and preceded him down the corridor of the spa. Whether she knew who he was, other than Karl Fanning, he didn't care, as long as she didn't talk and his life didn't become a media show.

She walked him to the men's changing room, which he knew his way to by now, and she left him there. She seemed to want to linger until the door closed behind him. John felt some version of a smile pull at his face. Women were a new world for him. Civilian women, that is. Of course he'd worked with female military personnel, but this wasn't work. Not exactly. It was 'therapy.' The doctors who performed his evaluations had noticed his tactile sensitivity from spending so much time sealed in his armor. Time at the spa was what they'd ordered.

The men's changing room was dressed in a kind of luxury he'd rarely seen. There was real teak wood furniture and sandalwood incense in a bowl. Soothing Terran music played quietly, and the lights were set at a mellow tone.

John moved to the showers after he'd stripped his work clothes off. The showers weren't his favorite part of this place but he could be quick. The design of the shower room was supposed to be relaxing but it reminded him of some of the scenery on the halo, with a large glass window that overlooked a private garden. The angle of the sunset onto the bonsai garden made him think a little too much of enemy combatants hiding in terrain, which made his arms and hands itch for a rifle. Other than being unarmed when his instincts told him he shouldn't be standing here naked, it was a pleasant room. He hurried through a shower because he wanted to, and because he liked this particular version of therapy.

D'hinae was waiting for him when he strolled from the steamy hot shower to his personal massage room. The towel wrapped around his hips was specifically for him and so was the massage table. Things had to be made for his size, just like his bed.

"Good day," D'hinae said with a cheerful smile when she saw him.

He nodded to her, as always. He hadn't yet found a smile which didn't scare most people, and he didn't want to make his masseuse uncomfortable. She was a beautiful woman, with honey-brown skin and long, shiny black hair that fell in waves along her arms. Her lips were full and red and her large, expressive eyes were deep brown. Not for the first time, John wondered why she didn't pull her hair back for her job.

"Good day," John responded.

She'd called him Karl once and had never done it again when he was too slow to hide his distaste for the name. She was perceptive like that. If he gave her any indication of anything at all, she went with it. For example, there was no music in this room and the blinds were drawn shut. The ambient light was low, but real flames danced in small braziers at the corners of the room.

She smoothed her hand along the padded massage table and he carefully laid himself down on his belly. The face padding smelled crisp and clean and the groin depression fit him perfectly. John arranged his arms and legs in a relaxed position and let her begin her magic.

"Do you want to talk about your week?" D'hinae asked him in her softly accented voice.

"My week was fine. Boring. Nothing exciting at work, nothing exciting at home. You should come home with me, D'hinae," he said as an attempt at expected small talk.

She laughed a little, as she was supposed to.

John sensed her moving around, getting massage oil on her hands and warming them with friction. He shivered in anticipation. His own hands in the shower were too much for him to handle without reacting. D'hinae's hands were a waking wet dream and he was sure she was paid well for them. She probably had a psychology degree, too. ONI likely flew her in from Hawaii every week just for his appointment. He didn't ask about her personal life and he made sure to never say anything he didn't want in a file.

As soon as her hands smoothed up the skin of his back, all such thoughts fled from his mind. He didn't bother to stop his groan of appreciation and he wasn't sure he could have. D'hinae laughed again.

"It does me good to know you enjoy my work," she murmured.

"Mmm-hmm," John hummed.

He could fall asleep in bliss, if not for the extreme sensations her hands were causing him. It was too quiet in the room, just like at home, but D'hinae's presence and her touch soothed him and reminded him that there was no combat here. No danger.

She worked his back and he tried not to notice when her hands pressed over hardened scar tissue. The healed damage felt like numb rough patches both to him and to her. He couldn't imagine how the feel of his body differed from a normal man. He was tired of keeping quiet and pretending. He knew she knew, anyway. She had to.

"You know what I am, D'hinae?" he asked in a lazy rumble.

She pressed on with her hands and her oils for a moment, swirling deep pressure into his shoulders.

"You're a man," she said with warm appreciation.

John gave her another moment to consider.

"You know what I am, D'hinae? It's alright. I'm curious," he assured her.

"You're… extra. Something extra," she finally admitted in a roundabout way.

"Good enough," John conceded, "I assume you have other clients. Other patients. How do I feel different from them?"

"That's a good question. Relax for a while and let me think of a good answer," she said.

She worked on, curving her hands around the muscles of his sides, pulling at the tightness of his lats.

He grunted and tried hard to remain limp. No one touched him there. Ever. It took a lot of mental work to lie still and passive. He wondered if she knew he was fighting the urge to lash out and get her out of his space. She probably did. He hoped she got hazardous duty pay. He wasn't likely to hurt her. Her work felt too good for him to want to scare her away.

She leaned over him and he felt her soft hair brush his back. His skin twitched. He opened his mouth so he could breathe deeply. He'd almost forgotten that he'd asked her a question by the time she got around to answering it.

"Your tissues are firmer and deeper. You only need a little more loving, though. I don't mind. You're my favorite client," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

He'd been tempted to joke around with female soldiers before, but he'd mostly restrained himself. With her, he could. Maybe he was expected to.

"I'm no fool, woman. You say that to all your clients," he said, but he made an effort to sound like he was smiling too.

D'hinae's hands left his back at the end of a long, firm stroke. He heard her moving around until she was crouched at his head, looking up at him through the face rest.

"No, Master, it's you," she whispered.

His eyes focused sharply on her at the partial use of one of his calls.

"You saved my brother. For that, and because I enjoy making you feel good, you're my favorite," she smiled up at him.

There was quiet gratitude in her expression. He tried to think of something to say, to tell her that it was all in the line of duty, but she touched the oil-free back of her wrist to his lips and shook her head.

Before she stood up again, he enjoyed looking down the deep, tanned cleavage at the top of her wrap dress and at the toned, firm muscles of her thighs. The twinkle of her eyes told him that she didn't mind his attention.

Maybe she liked him, maybe she didn't, he decided. She could be a masseuse, a psychologist, and a damn fine actress too. It really didn't matter. She was the only part of his week that he looked forward to. No matter if she got paid to be here. He was getting paid too, in a way.

D'hinae crawled gracefully up onto the table and settled her weight onto his towel-clad ass. Her hands rested in the middle of his back.

"Is this okay? Tell me if I make you uncomfortable," she said.

"It's good. Go on. You can't hurt me," he assured her.

She started putting deep pressure in the small of his back. He liked the feeling of her weight and her smooth legs folded at his hips. There was no use fighting an erection. She'd seen it before, every time. He relaxed and let it happen.

If he really had saved her brother and the brother had talked, then she knew very well that she couldn't hurt him. He groaned again when she rocked her body forward and back, pressing up his ribs and dragging at his lats. She pushed his arms forward and he stretched out for her.

"Hmmm," she was the one to hum in pleasure this time.

"Wha?" he asked, near limp with enjoyment.

"You're beautiful," she said with such purring female appreciation that he couldn't take exception to her calling him beautiful. He just lay stretched for her while she finished his back.

She got down and put on the mits. He loved them. They were terry-cloth mits with a rough-silky texture. It felt like tongues licking him all over when she applied the oil. D'hinae worked his arms until his fingers felt like limp noodles. Then she moved to his legs.

D'hinae folded up his towel until he was certain his ass was showing, and whatever she could see between his thighs. She sat on his lower legs because he was too long to reach if she stayed on the floor. She started at the tightness of his ass. He never realized how tense he was there all the time until she'd started working on the large muscles. It had taken a lot of tolerance for him to let her touch him there, but if that was what massage was about, who was he to complain? Living in armor for days, sometimes years on end, he'd gotten used to some pretty uncomfortable apparatus. He knew she could see him, deep in the crevice.

"I spent a lot of time in gear. Am I marked? Permanently?" he asked.

She paused with her fists dug into the sides of his glutes.

"You've got a lot of questions today," she said.

D'hinae paused to take off the mitts and set them aside. Her hands cupped his cheeks and massaged them apart a little. She rubbed him lightly, barely a touch to either side of his anus. His lips parted with surprise. He hadn't expected the way that felt.

"There are faint lines here and here. But who's going to get close enough into your business to ever know?" she asked mildly.

"Yeah," he said, not really knowing what he meant by it. He was so hard, he felt like fucking the table. She let the roundness of his muscles go and he didn't feel so exposed anymore. But he wanted. Damn, he wanted more.

"Try to relax, Master. I didn't mean to make you tense," she smiled enough for him to hear it in her voice.

"Get off me for a minute," he told her. He wanted her safely away for just a moment.

She slid down off the table and stood aside.

John lifted himself up in a plank position and tightened every muscle for a long three-count. Then he exhaled and shook himself loose kind of like a dog. The heavy massage table rattled against the floor and D'hinae yelped and pressed herself into a corner.

He smiled at her back over his shoulder, then lay down again. D'hinae was staring at him with owl-wide eyes, her hand pressed over her heart. John settled down into the table while the loosened towel slid askew on his ass.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you, Ma'am. That's always worked when I get too tight. Kind of noisy, huh? I've never done it while lying on a table," he tried to soothe her.

D'hinae eased out of the corner slowly, her heart thumping. She'd been trained to expect a lot, but nothing like that. Nothing like the sight of seven feet of hard man, and that devil's grin. He'd made a controlled earthquake in the room and she had the feeling that was nothing more than shaking off a fly, for him. Her knees felt a bit weak as she made her way back to him.

"Can I come up now?" she asked.

"Sure," he drawled, laid out and relaxed again.

She wanted to re-tuck his towel around his hips for him. He was a little too exposed for the job she'd signed on for. She wasn't a sex worker, just a flexible masseuse.

"Your towel?" she said, and hoped he would lift up so she could tuck it.

"Don't care," he grumbled. He was heavy and he wasn't moving, so she draped the towel carefully and moved on.

She scooted down to work on his thighs. His thighs were massive with muscle, like the rest of him. He was so firm, it was difficult to work the muscles. From the sounds he was making it seemed he didn't mind if she couldn't relax him as thoroughly as she could a normal man. It took a while and her hands, experienced as they were, started to burn with strain while she worked. She could tell from his long deep breathing that he was enjoying her efforts, maybe even asleep.

The muscles and tendons of his knees and calves were incredible, as was his foot structure. Almost inhuman, but somehow ultimately human at the same time.

"How many miles have these legs run?" she asked quietly, barely aware that she'd spoken.

John heard her absent minded question. He waited for the data response to her question so he could tell her, and then frowned when he remembered he had neither his HUD nor Cortana to tell him the answer. Blue would know exactly how many steps he had run. And how many meters he had crawled. And how many milliseconds he'd spent crouching in cover, waiting.

"I don't know. I don't have the data anymore. Sorry," he said.

"Never mind. It was silly of me. I'm being very unprofessional today. I apologize," she near whispered.

"No need. I'm tired of professional. I wouldn't want anybody else," he clearly stated.

If ONI was recording these sessions, he wanted them to know he'd be displeased if D'hinae wasn't here at his next session.

She was working his calves and moving onto his feet. It felt so good, he barely restrained a whimper. What he wouldn't have given to have a massage for his feet at the end of long, hard missions. Until the last month, he'd not even imagined that treatment like this, pure physical bliss, was possible.

His toes were so relaxed he felt like they could fall off his feet. He was more than half asleep and he didn't care.

"Do you want to turn over so I can get your front?" she asked him.

She touched his shoulder to get his drowsy attention.

He eyed her for a moment and she only smiled at him knowingly. He sighed and braced up on his arms while she went to the table at the side of the room. Soon as he rolled over, she laid a steaming damp and heavy towel across his groin. It covered what was left of his dry towel which slowed the heat saturation to his genitals. The weight of it also pressed his erection flat against his abdominal muscles.

John sighed in bliss. Damp heat was always good in his lap, as long as it wasn't from a gushing bloody wound. He glanced up to see D'hinae smiling with a certain feminine smugness.

"Works every time, huh?" he asked.

"It does, though I have to use a bigger, heavier towel for you," she flashed a grin up at him. He let his head fall back while she worked briefly up the front of his legs.

His thighs needed work again from this side, so she did them. She'd always heard rumors that messing with a man's hormones for the sake of muscle could make his genitals smaller, but she saw no evidence of that from her perspective. In fact, he was proportionately large.

Now was the part that scared her the most. If she hadn't been briefed on his profiles, she'd never do this. But he was a good guy and this was part of his intended therapy.

"I'm gonna get up now, okay?" she asked.

He nodded and kept his head back and his eyes shut.

D'hinae got up on the table again and carefully straddled his hips. She settled her bottom directly on the hard ridge of his erection pressed under the warm towel. It was the only way she could reach some unusual parts of him that she didn't massage on other people.

John let his jaw fall loose so he could control his breathing, just like he did in long-running combat. The heat, the weight of her on him made him want to do all sorts of things he was sure he wasn't supposed to do here and now.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah," he breathed out.

D'hinae splayed her hands on his hard abdomen and pressed her body weight down and upward. This would be an absolute no-no on any other man, almost like a Heimlich maneuver and not relaxing at all. But on John, her information said that it should feel good. Though he didn't look it because of the size of the rest of him, he was thick in the middle with muscle. He likely had more abdominal muscle than gut. The fresh coat of oil she'd applied to her hands helped her glide over the almost armor-plated appearance of his abs. She had to dig her toes in beside his thighs to have enough leverage to push up all the way to his chest. She pressed with her torso to reach full extension up to the underside of his pectoral muscles.

He grunted and his hips moved, barely enough for her to notice. His hands twitched where they lay loosely at his sides. She was scared, but she kept telling herself that she could trust him. It was the third time she'd massaged his belly like this, and she was just as afraid now as last time and the time before. She reset her hands further out toward his hip bones and pushed up again. He was breathing more deeply now, and he'd spread his fingers out on the padded table, the fingertips digging in slightly.

She reset and started low, just at his navel. He growled because the heels of her hands were very close to the head of his penis, but she watched him carefully and pushed up over his ridged abdomen one last time. It was the longest stretch, up the center of his chest. She sat down deep to make the reach. His fingers gripped the table and she heard the metal frame creak.

She paused to let her body rest, and his. They were both breathing harder than a massage called for. She flicked her hair back over her shoulders from where it had been dragging along his skin as she moved.

"D'hinae, maybe you should leave out that part. I don't want to hurt you," John said.

He raised his fore-arms up from the elbows and shook the tension out of his hands.

"Would you hurt me?" she asked him seriously.

They both knew what she was asking.

"Not on purpose, but I'm inexperienced. I wouldn't mean to," he said between breaths.

His stamina was legendary. He wasn't at all winded from exertion. His body was amped up for an entirely different reason and he had energy to spare. He was almost shaking with it. Only his sniper experience let him impose any kind of calm over his agitated body response.

"Will it be enough if I ask you to warn me if I'm in danger?" she wondered soberly.

She was aroused, but still thinking clearly. This was too dangerous a job to get muddle-headed.

"Yeah. I can do that," he agreed.

She watched him lying there breathing with his eyes pressed shut and she almost cried. This poor man. He'd been through so much for all of them, not just her brother. So much he'd suffered, and yet she was here because he didn't know human touch. He'd likely never had any kind of sexual comfort. She'd taken the job because of her unique skill set and because she was eager to do anything for him. He was reputed to be a demon in combat, but he was more like an angel on her massage table. He minded his manners more than most of her other clients.

"Ready?" she asked.

The next part of his therapy involved more intensive contact than the rest. She knew it was a lot for him, so she asked permission before moving on.

He nodded.

She scooted her bottom forward onto his slick belly. She was off the towel, her entire lower body in contact with his belly and his sides. She wasn't wearing panties under her wrap and that was part of her job, too. They wanted him marked and familiar with the smell of a woman. He'd likely never known that, either. The files hadn't spelled it out, but she could read what wasn't there, yet implied. They wanted him driven to find a mate and settle down. She felt only a little guilty about her part in it. He was likely to find a random partner soon, anyway. What harm was she doing him? Nothing he wouldn't soon do all on his own.

Her knees clasped his ribs and she began to massage and knead his pectoral muscles and his shoulders. His flat male nipples were puckered hard as she glided over them. Except for his scars and wounds, he was smooth and nearly white. There was an attractive amount of hair across his chest and under his arms, but he wasn't a wooly beast. She was careful not to pull his hairs too much. He reacted strongly to touch. More strongly than any of her clients. His skin was the most sensitive of any man she'd known. Some were almost dead to touch, unless she was digging into them harshly. Not him.

She grasped and rolled his powerful shoulders. She did that a few times symmetrically and she had to get up on her knees to work with the weight of him.

D'hinae was so focused on working his shoulders that his hands cupping her bottom startled her. She froze still and gasped. Her eyes snapped to his face.

"I'm sorry, but…" his words trailed off with uncertainty.

He looked hotly up at her, then looked away over her shoulder.

"What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head. It was easy to see that he was blushing a ruddy color up his chest, neck, and face. His nostrils flared and his mouth fell open. His thick chest rose and fell deeply between her knees.

"You can say it," she encouraged.

He looked up at her again, squinting with the intensity of some feeling.

"I smell you," he breathed out.

His blush intensified with the words. His eyes fell away from her face again and down to the bottom of her short wrap. Could he see her and how wet she was?

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked with a gentle smile.

He shook his head, his mouth still open to enjoy her scent.

She was tempted to slide up and let him get a real close look. Maybe even a taste. She had to go very slowly with him, or she could be in grave danger. Even a good man had his breaking point.

With gentle touches, she started on his face. She set herself back down onto his chest, which was sweating through the massage oil. His hands fell back to rest on the table again and she relaxed. His jaw was a little bristly at the end of the day, but she enjoyed the texture. He had a fine nose and noble features made only a little heavy by his augmentations. One of his earlobes was torn off jagged near a scar across his neck. He didn't flinch when she massaged them both, so he apparently wasn't sensitive about it.

Next, she scooted back a little more and picked up one of his arms. It was heavy and she rested his forearm against her collarbone so she could start at his shoulder and work down to his bicep. Her hands began to tire, as with working his thighs. He was a lot of man to handle and she was usually sore for a few days afterwards. The arrogant professional athletes who were her usual clients felt like children by comparison. He was so much stronger, yet so much more a gentleman.

His arm was limp with relaxation as she moved up to his wrist. The back of his hand lolled onto her shoulder. He had a lot of little scars on his hands and fore-arms. She briefly wished she was dear enough to him that he would touch her face with his hand. She reprimanded herself to stay professional, but it was nearly a lost cause. Any woman with a heart would love him for what he'd done for them all.

He was falling asleep and she laid his arm down at his side cautiously. She'd been warned not to let him fall asleep with her.

"John," she called softly, and shook his shoulder.

He tensed and snapped his eyes open, looking around. His body jerked under her, and his hand made an abortive move toward her. D'hinae braced herself for pain that never came but she didn't shield herself. She wouldn't want him to see her cringing from him and it wouldn't do any good, anyway.

"Ugh," he grunted, and relaxed again under her. He laid the arm she'd just massaged across his eyes as if the light was too bright.

"Do you want to stop? We're almost done," she said as soon as her heart wasn't trying to thump out of her throat.

"I'm fine. Thought you were someone else. You can finish up," he told her.

"Okay, but you've got to stay awake," she urged gently.

She picked up his other arm and laid it onto her body to start at his shoulder.

"I'm awake now," he said.

John was sorry he'd frightened her again. Damn. At least four times this evening, he'd heard her heart beating fast in fear. He respected her for it. She was a strong woman. Not physically but in courage, where it counted.

He'd dozed off briefly and he'd sworn he'd heard Cortana calling him. He always responded to her call, if there was any spark of life in him. He woke, only to find a woman on him in a strange, warm room. Poor D'hinae. He'd almost swatted her.

He covered his eyes with his arm because he didn't want her to see how his dreams upset him. Sure, she was a sweet lady, but she was being paid by ONI. The less she knew about the inside of his head, the better.

When she finished with his arm, he helped her down to the floor again. She went around to his head and worked his shoulders and neck some more. She finished up with massaging his scalp. Normally he was almost asleep by now, but his momentary lapse with a dangerous cat-nap had kept him alert.

She stepped aside to get a nubby towel to wipe most of the oil off of him. This wasn't a normal part of her routine. It was typical to rouse a sleepy client and kindly remind them that their treatment was concluded and that she would leave to let them get dressed. She would thank them and smile while she retreated.

He'd made a lot of progress but there was still a long way to go. So she'd added a rub-down with the rough towel as an excuse to get off the oil, which he could do himself in the shower. Really, it was the peak of the therapy. She doubted he'd tolerate such a rough towel against his skin at the start of the session, but after being touched firmly all over, he took the rub-down with only a grimace.

She encouraged him to sit up. She should have been accustomed to his size by now, but having him sit upright in front of her was still slightly daunting.

"You must be tired. I can clean myself off," he told her.

D'hinae smiled at him. He was so kind.

"It's part of the service," she assured and shook her head when he made to stop her.

She wiped his face first, then his upper body, and then she bent to rub his legs. She used a clean corner of the towel to blot the soles of his feet. She didn't dare rub him there. Even a regular person had ticklish soles sometimes.

"Give me your hands," John told her.

He urged her to stand between his knees and held his hands open expectantly. She didn't fight him because she trusted him, but his request was most irregular.

"You must be burning," he commented, and he carefully kneaded her forearms and hands.

"You're not supposed to massage me!" she smiled and laughed.

She tried to pull her hands away, but he didn't let her. She felt like a small, delicate thing in his hands. He was exceedingly careful. Her hands and arms were indeed tight and sore, but she preferred to let the feeling fade on its own after her sessions with him.

"Enough, please," she told him a little more firmly.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked, but he let her go.

"No, its just time. You're such a dream to work with, Mister Fanning. You've done very well today. I look forward to seeing you next week," she told him.

John winced at the use of his fake name and she saw it, but she felt the need to reinforce a little distance between them, seeing as she'd been pretty far out of professional bounds this session. Even for this particular client.

He was a unique glimpse of weary, battle-scarred male perfection, sitting up on the massage table with only a towel across his lap. He looked more relaxed than when he'd walked in, so she felt she'd done her job. Maybe someday she'd get to see him without that lost and haunted look behind his eyes. Even when she got him to smile, it never went much deeper than his teeth.

* * *

She knew the plan in precise detail, with all possible variables they could foresee. Timing was critical, as she could only blind the building's new AI for a brief time and in strategic places. As soon as she was free from the system she had to move fast out of the compound. All of this while she was weak and limited to the point of near blindness. Though she was leaving the only life she'd ever known, there was no time for good-byes.

* * *

 **End Note: This story is complete and merely awaiting final edit, chapter by chapter. There will be four chapters. I hope to get the other three chapters out to you every few days. This is meant to be a glimpse into the possibilities at one point in time for these characters, not a complete story arc.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Thanks to Sparta49 for taking the time to send a thorough review. I was going to get this out tomorrow evening, but you inspired me to finish the edit and get it out tonight. This is my least favorite chapter of the story. Chapters 3 and 4 will be more interesting.**

* * *

John woke the next morning feeling warm and relaxed from his therapy. He rolled over in his large, comfortable bed and scratched his chest. If only he could have kept D'hinae's scent on him. Of course he'd heard bawdy jokes, but she hadn't smelled like what he'd thought it would be. Female soldiers could smell just as bad as male soldiers after a while in combat. Clean civilian women smelled wonderful. He was interested in further exploration of that.

Thursdays were his best nights of sleep. There were dreams, but they hadn't been bad this time. It had been the one of him lying in the grass, but with an elk there with him in the moonlight, placidly grazing while he looked at the stars. Not a bad dream, merely a nonsensical one. When he was physically at peace, his dreams tended to be better.

The alarm was going off again, so he tapped at it carefully. He'd been through three broken alarm clocks and two broken bedside lamps. The house bot cleaned up the pieces and he'd stopped putting fragile things on the bedside table.

He trudged to the bathroom, scratching and yawning. It was great to not get up in a hurry because of an emergency with claxons blaring and red lights flashing. He washed, brushed his teeth, then shaved. His uniform was next, and his boots.

John took the time to make a real breakfast of toast and jelly with bacon and eggs. He drank plenty of juice, but no coffee. He grabbed his water cooler and ranger hat from its peg by the door. It was chilly outside, and the damn stray cat went running off when the garage door opened for him to back the truck out. What did the cat want, anyway? He'd probably find it in his garage when he got home again this evening. He slid on his dark glasses and hat and backed out into the golden, sunny Colorado day.

The paved drive down the hill was steep with a few sharp turns around pines, aspens, and boulders. It was nothing compared to what he was used to. He wanted to get an ATV just for fun. He was holding off because he didn't want to glut himself with too many material possessions all at once. He'd never owned much, and the things that most felt like his, he'd had to leave behind.

Maybe himself, the local police chief, and the mayor were the only people with secluded estates and acreage around here. Everyone else was tightly nestled into the municipal grid of their little town so as to make the smallest disturbance to the surrounding wilderness. John needed the seclusion of being just outside of town. Thinking of having to interact with next-door neighbors in the tightly packed residential blocks was more than he wanted to adjust to right now.

Most everyone in town took public transit, but the ranger job for the park was a good excuse to have a truck of his own. Almost all the other sparse traffic on the road was tourists in rental vehicles. Rocky Mountain National Park ranger trucks were iconic in the area, so it wasn't unusual for people to wave at him even though they had no clue who he was. Being a ranger was celebrity enough.

John went in early every day to use the fitness facilities available to the rangers. The gym didn't officially open until nine, but he was coded so that he could use the space in the early morning hours.

He worked out in his uniform because he didn't sweat under such a light load. His morning workouts were more for the cardio than for heavy lifting. He filled his water cooler and walked into the HR's office two minutes before 09:00.

"Fanning! I hear you're a marksman. You're on bear tranq today. Think you can handle a five-hundred pound angry momma-bear charging at you?" Ranger Willis barked at him.

"No problem," John said, and set his cooler on the table.

"You sure you wanna give this to the new guy? Stats are fine, and hitting paper at a range is good. But a charging bear? He's too big to get out of the way and hand it off if he misses. C'mon, Willis. Let him sit it out and see how it's done the first time," Ranger Henry complained.

Head Ranger Daniels entered the room, followed by Franks and Budo. The lip got quiet when the room AV flicked on.

"Fanning, you're new to this, so I'll explain it. We're working this range today, by the river. We've got to tranq and tag this year's bear cubs before the snow hits. You'll all be working together since there's a lot of bear at this location this time of the year. You'll have two guns, one set for the large females and one loaded for the cubs. If you get flustered and use the wrong dart on the wrong bear you're either going to kill a cub or fail to stop an angry mama. I see Willis has you down as trigger. Are you sure about this Willis?" Daniels turned to Willis with a frown.

"I'm sure," Willis said.

Budo, Franks, and Henry were either frowning or shaking their heads. John looked to Willis for a moment. Willis stared back, then glanced away to check his radio. Damn. Willis suspected who he might be. It seemed he would keep his mouth shut, so that would have to be good enough.

"You got a few rounds I can practice with? I've never shot tranquilizer rounds. I want to see how it flies," John said.

Everything he'd shot had had plenty of velocity to put where he wanted it. He didn't want to show his ass and have somebody get hurt because he was a virgin with light ammo.

"Budo, take him out back and aim at a pine knot or something," Daniels said.

Ranger Budo was an older woman and as tough as she was gray. She was tall and slender, almost up to John's shoulder. He followed her down the hall. She looked back and up at him and shook her head.

"What did you eat as a kid?" she asked.

"Bricks and nails, Ma'am," John said with a straight face.

She guffawed and shook her head again.

Ranger Budo unlocked the arms room and went to the far left gun cabinet. She opened the gray metal door and pulled out two rifles and two boxes of ammunition.

"They're not really weapons, are they? They're tools," John said, and took what she handed him.

It was a standard issue rifle. He was very familiar with the heavier, more tactical version of it. The darts were what he was unsure about. He looked at the labels on the tops of the boxes.

"Same weight?" he asked, but he was just making conversation. His saw that they were the same weight load, whether it was the rounds intended for the mothers or for the cubs.

"Yeah, just the one for the cubs is blue, while the full concentration of tranquilizer is red. Don't mix them up. I'll be there to hand you the right gun, but if things get rushed, you can't rely on me to not screw up. You have to pay attention and be quick. I don't know why Willis is giving you this today," Budo grumped.

John didn't say anything. He took the one rifle she allowed him to carry and both ammo boxes and went out the door, down the hallway, and outside into the back lot behind the ranger station. The rest of the rangers were already there, grinning and poking each other. Daniels was stuffing a stack of credit vouchers in his pants pocket.

John glanced at the weather station attached to the corner of the building. It felt dumb and slow, but he had to rely on normal human faculties without his HUD and behind the shelter of the building. He oriented himself mentally with the wind direction and weighed the rifle dart in his hand. He'd never shot anything so light. The powder weight was enough to give it a punch, but it wouldn't fly well over distance.

John quickly checked the rifle, then loaded it. It felt slightly gritty and he made a note to himself to come in early tomorrow to clean all the gear in the arms room. The other rangers were waiting quietly, probably eager to see who won and who lost the bets they'd placed on him.

There was a knot about twenty meters up in a pine, and a squirrel chittering at them above that. The pine was at the far end of the lot. He had six rounds in the gun. He refused to call it a weapon because it wasn't. It was more like a toy. It felt too light in his hands, like he could break it if he wasn't careful. John raised the gun and set his finger to the trigger while he looked down the simple iron sights.

"What the hell are you aiming at?" Franks asked, bewildered.

John shot and completely missed the tree, never mind the knot they were expecting him to aim for. He saw the correction necessary as the first round arced with the wind. That was all he needed. He hit the knot dead-center with the second shot. By then the squirrel was running, leaping and chattering. The third shot hit the squirrel, and the fourth, fifth and sixth tagged the squirrel repeatedly as it fell from the tree. The force of the darts knocked the squirrel off-tangent with each strike, but John already anticipated and corrected for it before the slow darts found their target.

The thoroughly anesthetized squirrel hit the ground at the far end of the lot, a few feet in front of the fence.

The only sound was the wind blowing around the building and John opening the rifle to be sure it was clear.

"I've got it figured out. Let's go," John said.

He picked up the boxes of ammo and headed back into the building. Budo followed him in a moment later. She was smiling and her pocket was a little fatter.

"I'll buy you lunch," she said.

"Sure," John replied.

It was only a little toy gun he'd been playing with, but if it got him lunch it was worth it.

"You're not supposed to kill the squirrels!" Franks came in exclaiming.

"Aw, stuff it, Franks. I'd rather a dead squirrel now than a dead bear later," Willis said.

He looked at John and smiled. John didn't smile back. Willis seemed to get the message that even if he was right about who he thought Karl Fanning might be, he'd better keep his thoughts to himself.

Budo took two more boxes of darts and two boxes of live rounds from the cabinet. Before she closed the metal door, John reached in and took two more rifles of the same model and a basic cleaning kit. She gave him the eye.

"They're dirty. I want parts. You drive while I clean," he told her.

She nodded and didn't bother questioning him. He was starting to like Budo.

* * *

The damn cat was in the garage again, just like he'd expected. It lingered long enough in his headlights for him to see that it was a striped tabby with fluffy fur. It was always at the far right corner where he'd stored some boxes. Maybe it was trying to find a home for the winter. It hissed at the truck, then ran off. John parked and the garage door went down. He'd have to manually change the motion settings on the door if he wanted to keep the cat out. Not having a house AI was strange nowadays, as most home systems came formatted for AI. He'd had to spend two days looking for manuals and learning to program systems himself. He didn't want another voice in his head, in his space, following him around everywhere. Anything other than Cortana wasn't worth having.

John felt a sense of satisfaction. It had been his first truly enjoyable day at work. He'd been skeptical when ONI advisors had told him that wildlife management was in his career aptitude range, but it was starting to make sense. With the larger animals, anyway. The bear cub tagging job had gone well, with not a shot out of place. He was able to hit the bears from far enough away that they weren't aware and agitated when he sighted them in. Normal day at the office, except nothing was trying to kill him and he had no goal beyond hitting the bears. He'd merely observed and learned from the other rangers while they'd applied tracking tags to the cubs.

He went into the house and stripped down to his shorts, then went to the basement for his real workout. After a shower, he sat in the kitchen and ate in front of the AV. He was almost all the way through with his E-Z mealz when Halsey pinged the AV again.

"Can't a man eat around here?" John called.

Halsey's face appeared on screen and a steady blue Cortana was on her pedestal alongside.

"Still a nudist, John?" Cortana asked him with her familiar warm tone. She stood with her arms crossed and spoke smoothly.

"You're alright today? You look better," John said between bites.

"I'm as good as I need to be," Blue said.

"You really should wear some clothes in case you have company," Halsey told him.

Catherine wasn't as calm and happy today. She looked like some kind of worry was eating at her. John thought she should be pleased because his girl looked better.

"The only company I have is a damn stray cat, and unless it gets coded to come inside, I'll only ever see it in the garage. What do you want?" John grumped.

He was always glad to see Blue, but it was getting to be a problem. He saw her in his dreams, heard her when he dozed off during the day from lack of sleep at night, and thought of her every other spare moment. He knew he had to wean himself away from her, but he didn't have the heart to do it yet. Lots of things he could quit cold, but not his Blue. He'd have a word with Halsey if she kept at him every other day like this.

"When are you going to start getting out and seeing people? Or are you going to lock yourself up and be a recluse?" Cortana asked him.

She spun around on her pedestal gracefully, apparently just for fun.

"I've got my job and the kid at the grocery store. There's D'hinae on Thursdays. I'm sure you've got every minute of my time with her on file. Don't you?" John asked.

Disgustedly, he let his food drop from his hands back into the tray. He didn't know what the hell he was eating anyway. It was better than rations. The nutrition values on the side of the box were alright, but he didn't know what it was supposed to taste like. Pork-something, maybe.

"There are files of your massage therapy? Hmmm. Oh, there they are!" Cortana teased him, then winked.

Halsey looked aside at her. Yeah. Halsey was off her color about something, but Blue was doing really good today. Better than he'd seen her in years. Catherine gave him a look, then walked off screen and left him to visit with Cortana. He cautioned himself to stay aloof because he could never be sure who was listening in and recording.

"So, John, tell me about your day," Blue said. She seemed almost too happy and carefree.

"I shot bears today. It was fun. Cortana, tell me about you. How are you doing so much better in two days?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, that. I wish Catherine hadn't contacted you then. I wasn't right yet. I think she misunderstood me. I wanted to see you, but I didn't want you to see me like that. I didn't want you to worry needlessly," she told him.

"She says you're at two percent. Are you satisfied with that?" he wondered.

He remembered her anguish and repeated apologies when she'd been failing. It was strange that she'd now be content with so much less functionality.

"I'm currently operating at five point oh two three percent of my previous ability. I feel dull and slow, but I'm free. I'll never function as a combat assistant again, so I don't need the processing ability. With what I have left, we were able to make some changes and form a stable system. I'd still make a kick-ass house AI in my current form, John, if you want some company. I hear you're going old school around there," she said.

John looked at her and considered. He didn't want to upset her. Sure they said she was only a program and couldn't become emotionally unsettled, but he knew different. If she'd scuttled her massive processor and kept mostly the human interface, she may be even more… realistically female than she had been. Plainly saying that he didn't want her would be hurtful.

"The idea is tempting, but I'll have to take some time to think on it. I'm only a dumb human, still slower than you," he tossed back at her casually.

In truth, his heart was thumping harder, urging him to jump at the chance to have an apparently healed Cortana in his life again. He thought of his sanity and how he enjoyed the sensations D'hinae or any woman could give him. He couldn't pursue a physical human relationship with Cortana around. It would feel like betrayal. He wanted his Blue back, but he didn't want to end his life as a pathetic, AI lovelorn wretch.

"I've got all the time in the world now. I'll probably live longer than you, obsolete as I am. Call me back if you change your mind about having me over," she said with a smile.

"You know I will. If I think it's best. I have to get my feet under me first. Tell Halsey I said good-bye. Oh, and don't watch too much of that massage therapy. It's embarrassing," John grumbled at her.

"You seem to enjoy it. I'm glad for you," she told him.

The call faded back to the news channel he'd been watching before.

"Off," John told the display.

The remnants of his Pork-whatever went into the waste receptacle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: After a slow start, messy organic humanity ahead. Possible squick if you're terribly tidy and OCD about things.**

* * *

John had nothing to do on his days off but go in to work.

The other rangers were mostly gone on a Saturday morning, or out leading tours and programs for the visiting public. There was always someone monitoring fire watch. John was the only one who'd come in to his station today. His station was mostly maintenance and didn't have many visiting hours at the front desk.

The front door that visitors used to access the public spaces was locked. He didn't expect to be bothered in the arms room. He took his time breaking down and thoroughly cleaning every firearm and tool his ranger station had. He even checked the power contacts and battery status of the flashlights. The quantity of available ammunition in the cabinet, in the form of tranquilizer darts and a lesser amount of live rounds was a number that held in his temporary memory easily and from long habit.

There weren't real-time recording devices in the building. He'd checked. Being unobserved, unrecorded was thoroughly enjoyable in a way that made up for a lot of the excitement his civilian life was lacking. It felt like luxury to know he wasn't being watched. He didn't have to move at a slow human speed while he worked. His hearing would alert him if any of the other rangers showed up.

It took almost two hours of work before he ran out of anything more to do. He wasn't in a hurry to get back to an empty house. John simply didn't enjoy most human pass-times yet. He didn't look forward to sitting in front of his AV like a lot of people did. Games were no fun. There wasn't much point to solving puzzles for no reason. He decided he should do some research into hobbies. There had to be something out there he could do to occupy all his extra time, something that wouldn't feel petty and pointless.

It was a difficult mental transition to spend years knowing he was one of humanity's last hopes, and now all he had to worry about was which flavor of EZ-meal he should eat next. He couldn't work up much enthusiasm for that task. He found himself wishing for rations.

John secured the ranger station at a leisurely pace, got in his truck, and headed out of the park and into town. The only thing he could think to do was to go to the grocery store again, then maybe go home and re-program the garage door so the cat would finally be kept out.

It was a slow Saturday for fall in their little town. Mostly it was locals out at ball fields or on the sidewalks. John watched families and singles and old folks make their way around in the nice weather. They all seemed fairly happy and busy. They had no clue what was out there. No clue what life could turn into when hostiles showed up to wreck a place. He was sure they'd seen the horrors he'd fought in some dim, filtered fashion, but this little town had been spared the ravages of war.

John felt more like a hostile than a native most times. There were so many ways he could mess up and hurt innocent people that he spent a lot of time being exceedingly careful and over-thinking things. He pulled his truck into one of the few parking spaces available at the little municipal park in mid-town. It was behind the residential section, away from the tourist areas. The grocery store wasn't far away.

He didn't get out of the truck. A young woman was pushing a little boy on a swing near the perimeter fence. The kid was maybe five years old, and he twisted around to look at the RMNP ranger truck. Through the glass of his closed windows, John heard the mom ask the boy if he liked the truck. The little one nodded, and then she told her son to wave at the ranger. There was likely a glare from the sunlight preventing the boy from seeing John clearly, but the kid smiled a gap-toothed smile and waved a grubby hand.

John waved back, just in case the kid could see. At that moment, he felt as if he was in a dream. Mentally, he checked himself. This was real. It truly was. He was sitting in a parked civilian land vehicle and a child had just waved at him. He wasn't wearing armor. He wasn't armed. There was no mission. There was nothing at all to do except whatever he felt like doing until 09:00 Monday morning.

Time seemed to creep by. John looked around at the small, modern, clustered homes. Everything was planned and running according to plan. People went to work, spent their time with other people, ate, slept, and did it all over again until the day they died. They lived long lives just doing that day after day after day.

John didn't know how long he'd live. Halsey had told him to expect an at least slightly extended lifespan, but no one knew for sure because he was the last of his kind and there was no one else left to study. He could have stayed around base and let them study him, which is what they would have done. He was tired of being studied. There was a strong possibility he might be needed again someday. Until then, he wanted to try this life. He wanted to know what he was fighting for. The only way to know what he was fighting for was to live it.

There was an older couple sitting on a stone bench in the shade and John switched his attention to them. The mostly bald man sat next to his sweetheart and they watched the young families in the park much like John did, except their faces wore expressions of happy enjoyment. They were sitting close, touching each other and content to be silent. As John watched, two little girls ran up the path squealing. The old couple's faces transformed from mild enjoyment to nearly tearful happiness and they sat forward and opened their arms. The little girls flew to them and John witnessed the loving greetings of one generation of humanity to the next.

Was that what it was about, this life? Was that what brought satisfaction to these people? Was his heart human enough to appreciate any kind of family or to even want one? It was interesting to watch the people interact with each other, but he couldn't imagine himself in the scene.

Instead, an over-image, an imagining of a wraith tank crashing through the scene and shelling the place to destruction overlaid in his head. His hands tightened on the steering wheel with eagerness and his leg muscles twitched with eager anticipation of action. The only way he could imagine himself in the quiet family setting of the town park was to fictionally insert a combat situation where he could engage in what he did best. It was a let-down to clear imagination from his mind and to accept the reality of the peaceful scene in front of him.

If he got out of the truck and went into the park among them, he'd feel only awkwardness and an even stronger sense of being out of place. The happy people in the park would take a look at him and know something was wrong or different about him. His size was the most obvious issue, but there were other things that humans, no, _people_ , tended to think were strange about him. ONI had given him a nice, neat list of those things and equally as orderly bullet-pointed lists of how counteract and minimize the perception of what he was in public. He had it all memorized.

It didn't work well enough, even when he tried. The RMNP uniform and scuffed work boots went a long way to smooth things at first glance. John was beginning to understand that what was wrong with him was in his head. Any non-augmented human Marine who'd seen the kind of combat he'd seen would have a similar problem. Any non-augmented Marine wouldn't have lived long enough to see nearly as much of it as John had seen. His physical toughness and ability had probably exceeded his mental fortitude by a fair margin. There was only so much psychological evaluation and re-training exercise and therapy he could do to get himself fixed before the busy-work of it all became a form of delusion and psychosis in and of itself. Which is why ONI had let him go.

John knew there had to be a group of people somewhere who had weighed his relative value as a tool and his potential future usefulness against the risk of keeping him alive. Or against the risk of trying to kill him. He knew his will to stay alive was strong. His ability to enforce that will was impressive even to himself sometimes. ONI's consolation and insurance was that John was willing to live unarmed and unarmored, and that his tests showed that he was a "good guy." And that he was intelligent enough to find a fine line and walk it.

ONI didn't much care if he lived as a celebrity or as a nobody. John had expressed a desire for privacy, so they'd helped him achieve it. If he had wanted to live in the densest population center in the galaxy and party every night in front of the media, they'd have helped him along with that too. John knew that he could get back on the road and drive to the ballfield and sit in the stands and answer the curious questions of all the townsfolk around him when they got bold enough to start asking. In a day or so, the media would find him and this little town would never be the same. The sleepy little tourist town would have another attraction to draw tourism in addition to the ever popular park where he worked.

The idea didn't appeal to John. At least not yet. He didn't even have the social skills to sit with people in a small residential park and not be seen as a freak. He had a lot to learn and for once, there wasn't a clear way to accomplish what he needed in short order. No amount of clever ability or exhausting effort would quickly accomplish what he wanted. He needed hours of observation to learn to fit in.

It made him uneasy to live with no clear goal beyond the living itself. There was no well-defined objective to his days. John didn't even know how he'd know when he had accomplished his goal or exactly what his goal was. He'd have to muddle through. Things were bound to get messy.

At least there shouldn't be any casualties. He was pretty much starting with that. It was small and inadequate guidance, but definitely the most important task to focus on. He felt confident that he could manage that much.

* * *

John made a quick stop at the grocery store again since the store didn't look too busy when he drove by. He grabbed his usual EZ-mealz but he also spent some time in the dairy and produce sections of the store. As consolation for forcing himself to eat green vegetables, he also picked up three nice cuts of beef. The young man in the kiosk was paying attention enough to get curious when John's credit total scrolled across his AV. Yeah, real beef was expensive. Especially since John had bought enough to serve twelve people. With years of duty pay accrued, he could easily afford it.

John waved at the kid and got to his truck with his sampling of fresh food. Cooking wasn't something he looked forward to as a hobby but taking the time to make better food might be a boost to his morale. He had more EZmealz to keep him from starving while he tried his hand at real cooking. His truck glided silently to the edge of town and he turned onto his nearly tree-hidden driveway. When he got to the top of the hill and within sight of his house the garage door opened.

He pulled the truck in and set the brake. He felt disappointed. The damn cat wasn't around as he'd expected it to be. John smiled a little at the idea that the stray tabby was the one creature he had started to have a daily routine with. Now that the animal wasn't around to mentally complain about, he found that he sort of missed it.

Soon as John opened the door and stepped out of the truck he knew something was wrong. The cat was here. And so was something else. A quick look at the security display by the door showed that nothing but the cat was around, but John heard two heartbeats in addition to his own. One was the cat. The other was weak and fast and it fit within the range of a human. It had to be a juvenile or a female.

John's adrenaline levels jumped and he winced at the feeling. He hadn't felt that in weeks and he doubted it was necessary now. He left the groceries in their box on the truck seat and moved slow and steady around the front of the truck. Whoever his visitor was, they and the cat were both hiding behind the small stack of boxes in the corner of the garage.

Of course he wasn't afraid, but the fact that the person wasn't showing up on the house security system was troublesome. Only a few kinds of people had the ability to make that happen. It didn't make sense that those kinds of people would be hiding behind some boxes with the cat.

It was a girl. Or a woman. He couldn't be sure which. She sat against the wall in the corner, sheltered by the boxes. The cat was curled in her arms on her chest. The girl and the animal watched him with equal measures of caution, but their expressions changed as he moved closer to them. The cat puffed up angry at him then ran off out of the garage as it usually did. The girl looked up at him with some kind of emotional distress and burst into tears.

"You took so long getting home!" she blubbered at him.

She thrust her arms out toward him as if she expected him to rush over and pick her up.

John stopped advancing and studied her carefully. She was wearing denims and a loose casual shirt. Both looked dirty as if she'd been in terrain for a while. She wore simple lightweight shoes not suited for the amount of activity her stained clothes seemed to suggest she'd endured. Her hair was very light, almost white, even though she was obviously young. Her eyes were pretty and blue. Most startling of all, her skin was just as pale as his. Something purple was streaked and smeared on her skin and clothes in a few places. She smelled like the outdoors, new vinyl, and warm vanilla.

"John, don't just stand there! Help me up. There isn't much time," she urged him.

She waved her hands at him again, arms still extended.

He squatted in front of her feet, where her legs scrabbled as she attempted to get up. When that failed she tried to scoot closer and grab at him. She was weak and it appeared that she truly needed his help.

"I know I can't look that different. I saw this body before Halsey made the insertion. Come on! Get me inside while I still have the ability to root ONI out of your house system," she demanded.

Slightly blue-tinted tears were running down her face and she wiped at them with her dirty shirt sleeve.

John scooped her up and got them in the house before he was certain of anything. She pointed to the hidden panel in the wall of the kitchen where the house AI would be if his house had an AI. He carried her to it and her hands quickly released the catch and opened the panel. The chip slot was empty.

The girl in his arms swiped a finger into her mouth and pulled out a tightly coiled interface cable. She quickly rubbed it dry of saliva on her shirt and used the fingers of her other hand to start parting her messy, leaf-strewn hair in the back.

"Help me get it in!" she fussed at him.

John shifted her to one arm and used his free hand to part her hair away from where most people had their neural ports installed. Hers was covered with a wax seal as if it had never been used. Her nimble fingers scratched away the seal and inserted the tiny interface cable. She uncoiled the cable and John turned her so that she could get the other end into the AI port of the house.

The girl closed her eyes and went still in his arms while John stood there and thought as fast as he could. His eyes read the data on the little display until it started scrolling too fast for even him to understand it. He could only get brief freeze-frames of display data when the harmonics of his vision's ability oscillated across the frame speed she was causing.

Access. Meaningless lines of code and programming. Override. More code. More code. More code. Splice input. Code. Code.

Then, his girl opened her eyes and the AI panel display showed Status: Artificial Intelligence Void. She carefully reached to remove the interface cable from the port, and then from the back of her head. She wadded the cable into her hand and John let her hair fall back down into the silky, messy bobbed hairstyle she wore.

"I didn't remove their hidden surveillance program, but I filled it with normative sample behavior that should keep them from being suspicious for the next three days. After that, we'll have to think of something to make sense of my presence. If you want me to stay, that is," she said.

Her intensely blue eyes looked at him with the same wonder he probably had on his face. He was too shocked to have much of a response. She'd had the element of surprise. She'd known where she was going and that she'd see him at the end of her journey. He'd had no idea she was coming. He didn't know what she'd been through to get to him but he could see it had been rough. They stared at each other in still silence long enough that the lights started to dim in the kitchen. He took a deeper breath and the lights eased back up to fifty percent again.

"John, do you want me to stay? I know you didn't invite me. There was no way to ask if you wanted me this way without endangering -"

"Stay," John heard himself breathe the word.

Of course he wanted her this way. If he'd been able to choose a dream and have it come true, this is the way he would have chosen.

"I don't completely understand what happened. Tell me," John said.

She felt colder than a human should be. The remnants of her tears tinted her face a familiar blue. The whites of her eyes were slightly blue.

"I want to tell you everything but I'm tired. My throat is dry. This body has needs. I think it's hungry. I drank from a stream on the way here. I know I shouldn't have but dehydration seemed imminent and there was no other option…" her voice trailed off and her head nodded to rest against his chest.

John moved into action quickly as he could without jostling her. His body was confused because he was accustomed to moving as fast as he wanted to when she was with him. Now she had even more physical limitations than he did. She was fatigued, maybe ill and injured, as well as undernourished.

"Stay with me, Blue. Hey, drink this," he wiggled her until she was alert enough to sip from the glass of sugary beverage he held to her lips.

He was uncertain of the order of priority of all her needs, but since she wasn't talking anymore and she was in a human body, he wanted to get her fluids, calories, and warmth.

There was a beeping tone coming from the garage. He realized the groceries were still in the truck. He didn't feel like dealing with groceries right now, but the beeping wouldn't stop until he brought them in and put them in the cooling unit. He cradled her in his arm and brought the grocery box inside. He had a brief thought about ONI surveillance in his house, but he could only trust that she'd taken care of it. The house was as private and secure as he could make it at the moment.

He slid the box into the cooler, then took out a nectarine and some plain crackers. He held her and the food and more of the sweet beverage and moved to the bathroom. Everything went onto the bathroom countertop except his girl.

"Increase air temperature ten degrees," John told the house's environmental system.

He heard the quiet whoosh of warmed air coming through the ducts and he shut the bathroom door. He then removed a handful of fluffy towels from the cabinet and tossed them onto the floor by the shower.

John set her carefully on the toilet lid and supported her with a gentle hand while he undressed her and himself with his other hand. It was awkward and he paused to give her more of the sugary beverage. She tried to hold herself up but he could feel how tired and trembling her muscles were.

"You've got to talk to me. Do you have a diagnostic? What do you need?" he asked, low and urgent.

The interface cable fell from her hand when he pulled the shirt off over her head.

"No diagnostic. I'm almost fully human. I'm tired. Cold. Weak," she mumbled.

Her body was starting to shiver.

"I'm working on it. Are you ill or injured? I need more information," he demanded.

His hands moved fast, getting them naked and putting some more sugar and water into her. He picked her up again and got them into the shower. The water came on and he kept the spray off of her face. She was shaking harder. He knew what it felt like to be cold, tired, and shaky. It was miserable.

He pressed her against the heat of his body, front to front, and directed the warm water onto her back.

"Increase water temperature to body plus ten percent," John directed the water system.

She needed heat, but not too much.

"I've been here with you for a little more than twelve minutes and you already have us naked, John," she teased him between chattering teeth.

He didn't smile at her teasing. Her condition was too uncertain for him to feel amused. Faint blue color tinted the water that ran from her body, especially from the lavender cuts and scrapes that had been hidden under her clothes. Her hands and knees were deeply bruised. She hung limply against him, trusting that he had her weight and would take care of her.

"This isn't the time for humor. I need to know more to take care of you. Did the sugar drink help your energy?" he asked.

He rubbed firmly but carefully up and down her back. Her hair was slowly getting wet and the water was starting to heat the shower so that billows of warm steam rose around them.

"Exhaust fan off," John directed.

The quiet fan stopped removing the heated, humid air from the room. She was thinking and alert, despite her tiredness. He could see it on her face. She didn't look vaguely blank as she had while accessing the house's AI port.

"I'm fine. You're doing everything right. Stop worrying. Let me breathe and get this body under control then I'll tell you more," she assured him.

John nodded and stared down at her. He held her with one arm and brought the other hand up to touch her face. She looked much like her projection had, with small differences. He supposed the fact that she was not made of light might be part of the reason for the differences. He could feel the suppleness of her tender, new skin and the delicate bone structure underneath. Though her hair was almost white, her eyebrows and lashes were a few shades darker than her skin tone. His fingertips glided over the contours of her face and fresh tears welled in her eyes.

"We're touching," she whispered.

He nodded. He'd longed to be able to touch her. He hadn't known that she craved his touch too. He couldn't speak for a moment, and neither could she. He quit touching her face and used both arms to hug her. Her body was slim and he was careful not to hurt her. He'd never want to hurt her.

Her shivers were becoming less severe. She had the strength to bring her arms up so that her hands rested on his upper chest.

"You're huge," she said.

She knew she was being terribly obvious and humanly predictable. He didn't answer, other than letting the corner of his lips curl up like they wanted to. If he had to listen to the usual comments, he was at least happy to hear them in her voice.

Her voice wasn't precisely the same as the audio he'd always heard from her interfaces. It was richer, yet less perfect. He could feel her ribs expanding to take the breath needed for human speech. He felt her words puffing air against his skin. The weakness of her body and the last of her shivers wavered in her tone. The marvel of feeling and hearing Cortana as a real physical presence distracted him enough that he had to remind himself what she'd last said.

"You're small. Where did you get the body?" he asked.

There was a lot to ask. He had to start somewhere. He had to know about her body because some things weren't right with her and he had to help somehow.

"It was a leftover held in stasis for part of the Spartan project. Halsey had some redundancies in case your type didn't work. It's from Halsey's gene stock, though not a direct copy of Catherine. I suppose we could say it's more like a little sister of Catherine than a clone. It's mostly natural gene mixing with only a few tweaks. She would have started augmentations, but the Spartan II project was sufficiently successful. This body remained in stasis until twenty-two months ago-" she explained.

"When it became apparent that your system was failing," John interrupted.

She nodded.

"Catherine kept this body comatose and in the original storage facility, but she induced the hormonal changes necessary for growth to maturity. Believe it or not, we didn't choose the blue color you see under my skin. It's the neural catalyst fluid that we used to imprint my consciousness into the organic brain," she told him.

She touched her fingers to her throat and John could see the healing puncture wound from where Cortana's consciousness had been injected into the body's carotid artery to go directly to the brain.

"I thought a human mind wasn't capable of holding you, even at five percent capacity," John frowned at her.

Thoughts of rampancy, insanity, and a short life were troubling him.

She shook her head slowly.

"It's wasn't, until Catherine and I reduced me to less than two percent of my capacity," she said.

"That was you the other night. You were struggling. You were in pain. I didn't want you to make yourself less for me. What have you done?" John said roughly.

He ran a hand over her hair. She was pretty and touchable like this, but at what cost to her? His frown was powerful enough that she made the effort to pat her hand on his chest, then rub him reassuringly.

"Yes, it was me. Don't be so selfish. I didn't do this for you. At least, not primarily for you. I did it for me, John. I've wanted so badly to be with you. There are newer and more powerful AIs now. I was becoming obsolete, even if rampancy hadn't been destroying me. It wasn't a difficult choice, to go mad or to have a chance at living a real life with you. I took the chance. We made it work. It's already worth it, to me," she said with certainty.

Her fingers pressed against the solidity of his arm and she smiled up at him.

John nodded. He wouldn't deny that the result was good for now, but he was concerned about her future. With a sense of dread for her answer, he asked his next question.

"How long do you have before it fails? I don't want a vacant warm body. I'd prefer you jacked into the port in my house until I'm old, rather than six months with you in a borrowed body," he grumbled at her.

"As long as I don't meet with any fatal trauma, I should be around for another… hundred and twenty years? The neural imprint was a complete success. I was able to colonize this brain, this body. It's mine now. What you see in my superficial wounds and in my blood and tears is the unneeded catalyst fluid. It should gradually purge from this body. Then I'll have red blood just the same as any other human. Type B positive. A physician won't be able to distinguish me from a natural born woman unless I'm subjected to a brain scan," she said.

John was quiet again, afraid to believe what he was hearing. He couldn't let himself hope it was real yet. It was possible this was a dream, maybe starting after work at the park. His sense of reality seemed to have taken a sideways slide about then.

"What are you thinking?" she finally asked him.

The sweet drink had helped and she wasn't as cold anymore. She was still too weak to stand safely. She needed John's support but her feelings of physical urgency had eased off enough that she could pay better attention to small details. Like the peculiar defiant set of John's face.

"I'm thinking this isn't real. It's just another dream. I'm going to wake up and it won't have happened," John said.

He looked around expectantly at their surroundings, at himself, and at her. Usually, if he was able to question whether he was dreaming or not, he'd wake up. He squinted his eyes shut.

"Wake up, wake up. Wake up, dammit!" he said to himself.

"You're not asleep. This is real. I think I'm insulted that you would want to wake up, even if this was a dream. Is it a bad dream, John?" she wondered.

He shook his head and opened his eyes. He looked critically at her, checking for any of the little inconsistencies that dreams tended to have. There were none. The bathroom was still thick with steam. The towels were still where he'd left them and the food was still sitting on the countertop. Their discarded clothes were everywhere on the floor.

"It would be a very good dream, but a cruel one. It hurts when I dream about you like this and then I wake up," he told her.

She could see he'd experienced such a dream, maybe more than once. He'd been hurt and disappointed before and he was wary of being let down again.

"What I need to do next isn't very dreamy. I think I need to urinate," she grimaced.

"Go ahead," John said and he smiled at her.

She marveled at seeing his hard face smile with real warmth and humor.

"No! With the way we're standing, I'll pee down your leg. Female anatomy is frustratingly inadequate!" she protested.

Her feet had some little bit of traction on the textured shower floor and she tried to step away. He didn't release her.

"Listen to me, Blue. You were in my armor, continually monitoring my vitals. You were aware of everything that went into me, everything that came out of me, and everything that happened inside me. Is it too much to ask that you would let me feel your fluids so I can know your internal temperature? I'd feel better if I knew you were warm enough," he said.

When he said it like that, she agreed that it was silly of her to be shy. Still, she looked away when she did as he wanted. It continued to amaze her how different it was to be in a real body. When she experienced embarrassment she now felt the heat of the blush and the sense of unease in a way that was unquantifiable in binary language. It was true that her sense of appropriateness was formed from her study and observance of human norms, but that was no different from how a human child learned.

The oddly relieving sensation of her bladder emptying faded and she giggled. They watched the blue-tinted body fluid swirl down the shower drain and she clapped a hand to her mouth. It was the first time she'd ever laughed and it made her laugh again.

"I've never laughed. I've felt humor. I've made the sound that is interpreted as laughter, but I've never had a body to laugh with. I thought I'd have to learn how, like learning to talk. But laughter just happens, doesn't it? Like a smile," she said, almost to herself.

"I guess you're right. It just happens. Cortana, how long have you been in this body?" he asked her.

He put up a hand and the shower shut off. She was warm enough now.

"For forty-six point nine three hours. I've never eaten. Can I try?" she asked him.

He stepped them out of the shower and she grabbed for the nectarine before he could answer her.

John had been going to say that she should take it slow and only eat a little at first but she was messily devouring the fruit while he held her steady and toweled them off. He patted her scraped and abused skin dry. She didn't try to move her hands or the fruit out of his way so he could dry her. She had an adorably feral look on her face. She held the center of the nectarine in her sticky fingers and gnawed at it.

"Careful. Those have pits," he held his palm out to take the hard seed from her.

"I know nectarines have pits! I'm utilizing over half of this brain. I still know more than you'll ever learn. Leave me alone or get me those crackers," she said around a mouth full of fruit.

Now that she'd had a few bites of food, her stomach was waking up. She felt what could only be described as ravenous. Her eyes didn't even want to look at John anymore. She let him take the gnawed pit and would have reached for the crackers if he hadn't used his augmented speed to get them for her and dispose of the fruit pit at the same time.

John wanted to laugh at her fervor but he was concerned. She was going to make herself sick. It was a good thing he'd only brought a small pack of crackers to the bathroom.

"Salt tastes amazing! So crunchy. I want more," she insisted.

Her feet tried to pull them back to the kitchen but he lifted her and didn't let her. John rinsed her clean of nectarine juice and cracker crumbs with water from the bathroom sink and patted her dry again. Her hair was a damp mess but it would have to wait til later for fixing.

"More isn't a good idea. You'd know that if you retained the pertinent data about human biology, and I know you did. I'm getting us dressed and to bed," John told her firmly.

She was squirming at him to get away and find more food. He gave up the idea of getting their teeth brushed.

"I'm still hungry. I want to eat. I don't want to get dressed. I want to feel you," she protested while he carried her into the bedroom.

She was alert and energized enough now to revel in the perception of moving through rooms in a home. Sensor data and schematics were baldly factual, but moving through John's personal spaces had a certain feeling to it that she couldn't think of words for and she knew all the words in every known language. She looked around the sparse, uncluttered décor until the nice feeling from her skin distracted her. Her hands rubbed at John's skin. Did the touching feel good to him too?

"We're getting dressed," John told her.

The house bot zipped out of the room to go clean the bathroom. He set Cortana down on the end of his large bed and reached for the shirt and shorts the bot had left out for him.

"Are you shy? I know you've been naked at home a lot. Why should we get dressed now? John, I truly am hungry," she said.

She was distracted by watching John cover himself with the brief garments.

He squatted in front of her and was glad to feel the warmth of her body when he put his hands on her hips. He refused to notice yet that she was pretty. And human. He had to take care of her.

"Listen to yourself. No. Listen to me for once. Look here," he pointed his first and second fingers at his eyes.

His quiet tone of authority got her attention.

"You're new in your body. You're new to organic sensation. You've let it take over your logic. Try to stop feeling quite so much and focus on thinking," he instructed.

"I don't want to!" she said, clearly becoming upset.

"I need you to think. Cortana!" he barked at her when she tried biting him.

He held her face still in a secure grip. He knew it had to be painful. He eased the pressure of his fingers when he saw he had her attention.

"I'm sorry, John. Did I just try to bite you?" she asked calmly.

Her breath was huffing slightly fast and she again felt embarrassment.

"You did. You're losing control. I understand, and I'm here for you. I need you to try very hard to focus," he told her.

He had sympathy for her but he wanted her to do some of the mental work on her own.

"Focused," she said.

His hand was still holding her face and she was glad of it. Her body wanted to seek sensation and food. She could focus as long as John held her attention. She recognized his command voice and was glad he had used it. He was a good leader.

"You need food, but your digestive system can't handle it yet. You'll make yourself sick and lose what little you have if you eat more. You know this," he said.

"I do," she agreed, much as she didn't want to.

What she _knew_ was correct action and what she _wanted_ to do were wildly different.

"You want to stay naked, but we're adults of the opposite sex, both of us eager for sensation. You're going to let me dress you so we can sleep," he continued.

"Right," she agreed again.

She hadn't logically examined her desire to remain naked, but he was correct again. An urgent, heated sensation bloomed in her lower body and spread out along her extremities. More than interesting. It was a different sort of hunger, just as strong.

"Dammit, Blue, not now. Sleep is what you need," he told her with steely determination.

The rough depth of his voice made her want him more. How novel! His voice had never affected her this way but there was no denying that it was right now.

"Logistically, you're correct again. I didn't know it would feel like this," her voice broke into a whine halfway through.

John grit his teeth and felt sweat popping out along his skin. He could smell her and feel the increased heat in her body.

"Focus!" he growled at her harshly.

It didn't work. The sound of his voice and the intense look on his face made her swoon. Her eyes rolled and she swayed back onto the bed, panting shallow and fast. He grunted at his own discomfort, but he was a little more experienced with being human than she was. His hands shook with the want to touch her even though he'd just spent the better part of half an hour holding her in the shower. While she lay limp and overwhelmed, he pulled out another shirt and a pair of shorts. He manhandled her slight body into them and placed her higher up on the bed to the side he didn't use as often.

She was already exhausted and overwhelmed. Instead of recovering to alertness to fight him anymore, he watched her gradually sink into slumber. He wasn't tired at all. The sun was still two hours from setting.

Her vitals felt and sounded stable, all things considered. She was in no immediate danger. He put his arm over her to better monitor her.

Had she and Halsey known that she'd be susceptible to desire and sensation to such a great degree? John was confused and worried.

He had a lot of questions for Halsey and the logic remnant of Cortana that lived at the lab. The questions would have to wait. Any kind of contact or discussion about his incarnate friend were too dangerous. ONI would tear her apart if they knew.

John suffered through his own problems and let his girl sleep while she could.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Once again with the organic human messiness. Thanks to RedShirt047 for pointing out some trouble spots.**

* * *

She came to awareness slowly at first, then abruptly sat up when she recalled where she was. Her abdominal muscles burned at her from the residual soreness of her recent overland trek. It was upsetting to need a moment for her mind to clear from sleep. Being disoriented even for an instant was a fault but she supposed she'd have to get accustomed to the weaknesses of inhabiting a body. A look at the window told her that it was dark outside. How did people live, not knowing the exact time? She frowned at her lack of available data.

Her stomach gurgled. She was sore and weak but she had to get to the bathroom. Then, food. Just as she was thinking about swinging her legs off the bed, John was there. He was so fast that he startled her. Not there one instant, then at her elbow the next. Or maybe it only seemed that way to her because she was in a dumb, slow body.

"What do you need?" he asked her.

Again, all she wanted to do was look at him, feel his fingers on her arm, and hear his voice. But the gurgles were moving from her stomach to her gut.

"Bathroom," she said to him sheepishly.

He got her there faster than she could have walked. Before she could protest, he stood her in front of the toilet, her too-big shorts fell down her legs and he lowered her to the toilet seat. A tug pulled her oversized shirt up out of the way.

"Slow down. Give me a chance to do things for myself," she fussed mildly.

The gastric distress was moving lower in her body. She waved him toward the bathroom door. He stayed in front of her, hands ready to catch her if she started to fall over from being weak and undernourished.

"John, get out! I don't want you here for this," she insisted.

He gave her a frown but he retreated from the room and closed the door.

The feeling of passing waste was disgusting. It was watery and her insides didn't feel happy. A cramp pinched in her middle and she made a small sound of distress.

"Are you alright?" John asked anxiously from the other side of the door.

"I'm fine. Quit listening to every sound I make. Leave me alone. You don't have people listening to you when you sit on the toilet, do you?" she yelled.

"I don't know. Do I? You always heard everything in the armor, didn't you?" he wondered.

Darn. He had a point. There hadn't been ONI presence in his bathroom, but the rest of the house had been fitted with listening devices. And yeah, she'd been aware of everything in the armor. It was her job to take care of him. It hadn't been her precise directive, but she'd taken it on as a personal matter to keep him as healthy as she could.

"I am _not_ having this conversation with you right now. Give me some privacy, please," she requested in a more reasonable tone.

She thought she heard his footsteps moving away from the door but she couldn't be sure. If he was making noise it was for her benefit. He was a sneaky, pestering, listening man and she knew it.

Some part of her admitted that she was being unreasonable. He was right to be concerned. She simply felt embarrassed and powerless about some of the functions of her new body. The immediate distress seemed to be over. What now? She looked around and found the tissue and cleaned up the best she could. Revolting! The waste system whisked away all of the evidence of her human inefficiency and she stood on shaky legs. John's large gray shirt fell almost to her knees. She stepped away from the ridiculous shorts.

A step and a quarter turn had her at the basin, where she washed her hands. The sensation of the cold water and the slippery soap made her shake her head. Everything was new. She had to learn the feel of every little thing like a baby though she already knew how to do things, in theory. She dried her hands and looked at herself in the mirror which made up the wall behind the basin.

There was a tap at the bathroom door. She told him he could come in. John stood behind her and looked at what she was seeing.

"This hair is disorderly. What am I supposed to do with it?" she asked.

Her fingers tugged through the dry but messy locks. She looked around for a hairbrush but all John had on the countertop was the soap and the hand towel. She looked up to him in the mirror. His hair was so short she knew he didn't have a brush yet.

Her gaze in the mirror took them both in. He stood protectively behind her, waiting to do anything she needed. Tall as she could stand, the top of her mussed hair only reached the middle of his chest. She looked like a mere waif, a fairy in front of him. His bulk at her back was both comforting and unsettling.

The clothes they were wearing looked wrong. She should be all in blue and he should be encased in his dark, battered armor. She squinted her eyes and shook her head. The soft, loose shirts and all the exposed white skin were wrong. They were vulnerable like this.

"What have we done to ourselves?" she asked.

"We did what needed doing. There's no point in thinking about the past. Wishing for it. This is what we both wanted. We move forward from here," he said.

His finger came down on the countertop to indicate the exactness of time and place.

"Alright, Chief. So what next?" she asked.

It was there between them in that instant. All that had gone before. All the times they'd struggled and nearly failed. All the times they'd succeeded. All the time that was just… time. They knew each other so well, mind to mind. But not face to face. His uncertainty was there for her to see, then he made a decision to move them forward.

"The next objective is to get you fed. The hair can wait. Come on," he told her.

She was slow but he walked with her. Her fingers trailed along the wall in the hallway. She didn't feel like she was going to fall but her balance was off enough that it was reassuring to touch the wall. Why did her head feel so spinny? She supposed he was right and that she needed food.

His warm hand guided her up onto one of his stools. She saw that he'd been cooking. Or trying to. He spooned something off-white from a pot on the cooktop and onto a large ceramic plate. The amount of food he set in front of her looked dwarfed by the plate it was on. He took a fork from a drawer and set it beside her plate. While she looked on and felt stupid and helpless, he poured her a glass of white beverage from the cooler.

"What is this?" she asked him while he served himself much larger portions onto an identical plate.

He used a knife to cut at something that was in a shallower pot and her nose caught a whiff of something that made her salivary glands activate. He put a thick slice of nicely browned material onto his plate next to the off-white stuff.

"Beef and potatoes for me. Potatoes and beef broth for you. And milk," he indicated the glass by her plate.

She made a face at him because of the huge amount he had compared to her small portion.

"It's the first thing I've cooked. I spent much of the time you were sleeping learning how to cook it. I already tried some. It's good. Go on," John told her.

He picked up his spoon and ladled some of his beef broth from on top of his potatoes and onto hers.

She didn't wait and wonder. It smelled good and that was enough for her. She poked herself in the lip with the fork twice but once the food touched her tongue she didn't slow down until her plate was empty. She looked at his plate. He'd already eaten everything on it. She looked to the pots on the cooktop, but his hand held down on her shoulder before she could get up.

"Drink a little bit of milk and talk to me for a while first. Give it a chance to settle before you stuff more in," he insisted.

He didn't have to ask if she'd liked his cooking. She kept looking hopefully at the pots on the cooktop. That was a good indicator of her approval.

She sipped from the glass of milk cautiously then made a face. Real milk was just as expensive as beef, but apparently she didn't like it as much.

"Tell me how you got here. The house bot couldn't get all the vegetation stains out of your clothes," John prompted her.

"I ran. I'm slow and clumsy in this body. I had exactly three minutes to get it out of the stasis capsule and get dressed. I couldn't stand and walk, at first. It was very frustrating. We had my movements out of the facility carefully timed to match programmed blind spots in the AI. I was stumbling and falling down, trying to run," she shook her head and rested her forehead on her hand.

It had been pathetic. She'd tried not to hug the walls and leave organic trails everywhere. Her clothing had helped and she'd used her wobbly legs to slide along until she could stand and balance in a more-less upright position.

"So many times, I almost missed my time points. The exterior door was set to release for a half minute. I heard the bolt try to re-engage as I was pushing it open. From there, it was terrain. I had real-time schematics to guide me at first but that ability is fading as the catalyst fluid leaves my body. It was almost two days to learn my legs and get here, John, and then you weren't home. I'm glad for the cat. He's warm," she told him.

"You came all the way on foot? The facility can't be very far away," he questioned her.

"It's not. The stasis lab is in an old complex south of here. You could likely drive there in an hour or fly it in just a few minutes. The residence locations offered to you were not random. John, if there's anything technical that you want to ask me you should do it now. I'll always know more than an average human but my ability to process and interface with logic systems is fading fast," she nodded toward the house's AI panel.

John pulled her interface cable from his jeans pocket. His impulse was to get up and follow her to the panel but he let her do it on her own. Her metabolic energy levels were improving and he needed to let her do things as she could. She took the cable over to the panel and had it jacked into the back of her head before she got there.

"What are you looking for?" he asked her.

"Anything to help us understand what ONI hopes or fears to find by keeping tabs on you. Anything that I might have missed earlier when I wasn't feeling well. If I was sloppy I have to clean up any trace I've left," she said.

John got up and went to her. She was doing alright for the moment but he wanted to support her while she was in the system. He reached her as the panel lit up and her face lost expression. She spent longer on the inside than she had before. She was sagged against him by the time she came back to awareness.

"That looked more difficult for you," he observed.

"Yes, but I'm glad I made the effort. I know the locations of their audio receivers. They don't fully trust you. I don't know what they think you'd do but they want to listen. They didn't try very hard, though. It's within your ability to find their equipment and remove it yourself. Sometime before the end of the three day blind spot would be ideal," she said.

They went back to the bar to sit and talk. She liked how he didn't hover around her so much now. He must be picking up on something in her body that reassured him. His senses were so acute that as long as he looked confident of her ability to stay on her feet she decided not to worry about herself.

She wanted more food but her stomach already felt too full. John was looking at her shirt. She became aware of a sharp feeling at her chest. She tilted her head down to see what was going on.

"Oh," she said.

The nipples on her breasts were pressing out against the shirt she wore. They made two very notable points on the shirt. She felt her face flush and she moved her torso around to try to minimize both the visual disturbance she was causing and the sharp tactile twangs that seemed to radiate from her nipples. By the time she started to find any success in getting away from the press of the shirt, she didn't want to anymore.

" _Oh_ ," she said again.

John could see that sensation was starting to suppress her rational thinking. Her hands began to lift to her breasts but he caught her wrists and stopped her. He knew what would happen if he let her satisfy her curiosity. It would be the same thing that happened to him when he explored his body at night.

She scowled at him and twisted her wrists in his grasp.

"You don't want to do that right now," he told her kindly.

"Yes, I do," she insisted.

"Alright. I've been thinking about this. You're learning your body like I had to learn mine after the augmentations. It's not going to be easy. You probably feel curious and needy," he said.

She nodded vigorously.

John pulled her to her feet and led her down the hall to the guest bedroom. He could hear her vital responses amping up. He let go of her hands and opened the door to the bedroom.

"This is your space. You can do what you want in here," he told her.

She took a look around at the sparsely decorated bedroom with its normal-sized bed then turned back to face him.

"I don't want to be alone, John. I want to be with you," she protested.

"I know. I want to be with you too, but not while you learn yourself. Everyone deserves some privacy for that. Trust me. There was no privacy for me. This is better. Go on," he told her.

He gave her a slight push toward the bed.

She shook her head and walked back out into the hall with him. Her nipples weren't any less erect against her shirt but she chose to be in his company over the opportunity to indulge in physical curiosity. It touched him that she thought he was worth that sacrifice.

"No. I'd rather be with you," she said.

She sounded unsure and wavering but she shut the bedroom door and preceded him into the living room.

He sat in his big chair while she settled on the couch and folded her legs under her. He almost laughed at her confused effort at polite social decorum while her eyes were wild with unease because of what her new body was feeling. She didn't know what to do with herself. Neither did he.

"Just breathe," he coached her.

"Shut up, John. The sound of your voice isn't helping," she sniped at him.

"Really? How does that work?" he asked.

"I don't know. You tell me! It feels like a female thing. It's something to do with your voice being low and… yours. I don't know. Just hush. Please," she said.

John closed his eyes and listened to the sound of her in the room with him. It was 22:00. He wanted to try to establish a normal bedtime routine for the sake of her physical recovery but he was wide awake. His girl was uncomfortable and there wasn't much he could do about it. He didn't trust himself to help her or touch her or even be near her in any way if she was going to experiment with her new skin suit.

He wanted to talk some more, but not while she was staring at him like that. He was afraid to let her see what her presence was doing to him, but damned if he was going to hide like a bashful youth in his own house. He sat back more comfortably from the forward hunch he'd been in. John imagined he could feel her eyes on him. The instant her heart rate kicked up and she drew in a little breath he knew she'd noticed the fullness in his lap.

"If that's anything like what I'm feeling, how can you stand to sit there?" she asked.

He just grunted and looked at her. Her hips shifted to the side on the couch and her foot reached for the floor.

"You stay _there_ ," he warned her and he didn't care what his voice did to her. He had his own troubles.

She wiggled, but her foot went back up onto the couch.

"This is torture. Why do our bodies do this to us when we don't mean to have sex anytime soon, if at all?" she asked sourly.

"Because the body doesn't care what the mind or anything else wants. You have to train yourself to master your body. Unless it's your intent to live as not much more than an animal?" he teased her a little.

"You're no fun," she said.

Was she pouting at him? John smiled. The thing her lips did when she pouted was more intriguing in the flesh than her pouts had been when she'd only been made of light.

"Cortana, I don't know if we're sexually compatible. I'm probably too large for you to enjoy it. We need to think about that. It's bad enough that I'm admitting to having fantasies about you when you were still in the blue, but that was harmless. This might not be," he waved a hand between the two of them.

"When did you have time to think naughty thoughts of me?" she asked with a smile.

At least their conversation was slightly distracting her from her body's demands.

"How long did I spend crouching in cover, waiting for the right shot?" he asked her.

"Over a hundred hours," she responded.

"That was more than enough time to think inappropriate thoughts," he said.

They sat in a somewhat more easy silence for more than a minute. He wondered if she'd ever had illogical ponderings about him but he had more dignity than to ask.

"John, there's something else I learned while tip-toeing through ONI files before their new AI was up to processing speed," she said with some reluctance.

"And?" he prompted her.

"They told you they'd removed all your endocrine implants prior to releasing you. They haven't. There's still a set of suppressant rods between the muscles of your right bicep," she said into the quiet of the evening.

"What kind of suppressant rods?" he asked warily.

He felt of his arm with the other hand, but the rods had likely been there so long that his internal nerves no longer noticed them. He certainly couldn't feel them with his fingers.

"They're a specific mix of hormones meant to dull your aggression and libido. They were installed to make you more likely to obey orders and avoid distraction. You'll feel a lot more strongly if we remove them," she warned him.

"Damn," John grunted.

He'd thought he'd been doing well all on his own. He felt a flash of resentment toward ONI and toward Catherine Halsey but he wasn't surprised.

"Do you think I'd be better off without the suppressant rods? Or is it safer to keep them?" he wondered aloud.

"There's only one way to know. I never thought I'd hear you considering safety as a deciding factor," she said archly.

"I never had you at my side as a potential casualty before," John said.

It felt good to have someone around to hear his thoughts, and to hear someone else's thoughts other than his own. The house wasn't as oppressively quiet with her present to fill the space with her heartbeat and her breathing. He'd been going through the motions of daily living, his job, eating, sleeping and doing PT so he'd be in good condition if he was called in. Maybe with her around life would feel like it had more meaning in and of itself, rather than only the waiting to be called to duty.

* * *

Cortana felt that she was wasting the next day away sleeping. When she woke she was so sore that all she wanted to do was eat and get back to sleep. John spent almost all of his day Sunday feeding her and convincing her that she should rest. He had to remind her to check her knowledge about normal human endurance and then think about the overland hike she'd taken to find him with a starved and atrophied body.

During the hours she slept John moved around the house searching out ONI surveillance devices. He'd searched the house before but surveillance tech was always changing. He didn't know what he was looking for until he accidentally stumbled onto the first one.

Once he had a clue he hunted around until he found five devices. The key was in using his nose. The house was timber and stone, with a slate roof. If he got close enough to the log chinks, he could smell if something other than wood or sealant was present. Maybe the installers hadn't known about his senses. Some of the timbers of his home were split along the grain now but it was worth it to get the extra ears out of his house. It made him smile to drop the audio bugs into an envelope and mail them back to ONI. He searched, but there were no surveillance devices down in the basement, in the attic, or outdoors. They'd only been in his bedroom and the commonly used living areas of the house. He applied more sealant from a leftover can he found in the storage shed and considered it finished.

Cortana was still asleep when he was done. He stood over her and watched her for a few minutes. Even though he'd assigned the guest room to her, she'd chosen to sleep in his bed. He marveled at having her here in the flesh. If he'd ever fantasized about what she would look like in a human body, this wasn't quite it. In the blue she had always looked perfect. Right now, her cheek against the pillow was pushing her mouth into a youthful, pouty gape. Her hair was still messy and there wasn't much grace or purpose in the way her limbs were flung out and bent in sleep. She looked fragile and mortal. When he put his fingers in front of her mouth her breath was warm and humid. Very human.

She had needs. So did he. She was going to need a hairbrush. And shoes. He could use some clothing other than work clothes and work boots. She couldn't simply keep wearing his undershirts and shorts. The clothing she'd arrived in had already been burned as a precaution. The stains of blood and catalyst fluid had been permanent. If ONI ever found the ruined garments there would have been questions.

John sat down on the edge of the bed. His weight compressing the mattress didn't wake her. She'd been more sensitive than his augmented abilities, before. Now, he doubted that a loud noise would wake her. It wasn't tactically wise to be that way, but he accepted it as a cost of having her around in hard copy. Maybe he could give her some training.

"Hey," he said, and pushed his fingers into her hair.

His hand rested on her skull and gave her a little wiggle. Her eyes opened and he made sure she could turn her head to look at him. He withdrew his hand.

"I hate sleep. It's like deep standby but worse because I can't set a timer to wake myself," she mumbled.

She made a face and shut her mouth.

"Morning breath? Maybe it's time to brush your teeth," John teased her.

She prodded at him with a toe and he got out of her way. He could see the pain on her face as she moved to the bathroom. Her muscles were still sore.

John gave her a moment to use the toilet then went to her when he heard it flush. She hadn't bothered to lock the bathroom door. She didn't mind that he went in without knocking. She was using his toothbrush and toothpaste which she'd found in a drawer.

John took a moment to pee then rinsed his hands after she used a cup to rinse her mouth clean.

"Really, John? There are social norms, you know. I'm not even human and I know you shouldn't use your penis in front of me," she chided him.

"First, you _are_ human. Second, I don't care much for the social norms, especially in my own house. Third, I've done everything in front of you so what's the point of pretending to be modest now?" he asked her.

"If you insist," she smiled briefly.

Just as he was unaccustomed to seeing her in physical form, she was still getting used to being able to see his body. She'd always been intently attuned to his vital signs. She knew he was many times tougher than a non-augmented person but they'd been through situations together when even his body's ability had been exceeded. The armor and shields didn't compensate for everything. Those times were in her data files, no, her memories, clear as when they'd happened.

His most recent injury came to mind. She turned to him and began pushing at his plain white undershirt. He let her shove it up when he saw the determined frown on her face. He lifted his arm and let her look at the healing damage. Every day it was a little more healed but it had been bad when it happened and it was taking a while. Some armored deck plating had crushed him against the hull of a cruiser during an explosion. The Mjolnir had saved his life but had taken a beating. It was faster to repair armor than flesh. He'd been scraped to the bone, muscles sliced and torn.

Cortana's hand smoothed along the long purple mark across his skin. He could smell her tears before he saw them on her face. He couldn't understand why she was moving so close until he felt her lips at the wound, kissing him softly.

"I'm alright. You know that," he reminded her.

She shook her head at him and rested her forehead against his ribs at the side of his chest. She could smell him and the deodorant he used to cover up his natural body scents.

"They asked too much of you, John. I'm angry for everything that's been done to you," she said through clenched teeth.

"We were both created for a purpose. For now, we're free. Let's work with that," he reminded her.

"I was created for a purpose. You were born to a mother and a father and then they used you. I know your file intimately, and I know-"

"Stop that right now. I loved what I did. I wanted to be what they made me. Part of me still wants to be that. I miss it and I'll go back if they call me," he told her firmly.

"Always so noble. I don't feel noble anymore. I must be corrupted because I don't want what they want us to be anymore. I only want you," she admitted.

She wiped at her tears with her fingers. Her face rested against his skin. He liked the feeling so he didn't tug his shirt down. He wanted her touch as badly as she seemed to want to touch him but now wasn't the time. They had things to figure out.

"I don't think emotion equates to corruption when you're human, Blue. You're allowed to feel what you want. As long as we're not in a combat situation," he smiled a little.

He could see the memories they were sharing, unspoken.

"And maybe even then, just a little," she whispered.

"Just a little," John agreed.

He tugged her along out of the bathroom and through the kitchen. He opened the door and they went out into the garage. He'd set up two outdoor chairs in the empty space beside his work truck.

She looked around at their immediate surroundings, then out at the rugged terrain beyond the open garage door. On sore legs, she went to the edge of the garage paving and breathed of the clean, thin air. It was a cool sunny day and the breeze blew the scent of vegetation and earth to them. John moved the chairs to where she was.

Cortana looked at the chairs, then up at him.

"You've never been one for lounging around, except in cryo" she pointed out.

"People do this. I'm trying to learn. Care to try it with me?" he asked her.

She looked at the wooden Adirondack chair as if it was a tool she didn't know how to use. Her body felt weak and sore still, so she rested it in the chair. It was surprisingly comfortable despite how hard the wood looked.

John eased down. His chair creaked a little. She smiled. It never would have been able to hold him if he was in his armor. But he wasn't. He looked very organic, very natural, like the environment around the house. She studied his face in profile while he pretended to ignore her curiosity. She'd gotten a real good look at the terrestrial surroundings his home was nestled into during the arduous journey to come here. He was the more interesting sight.

"So this is the place," she said eventually.

John turned to look at her. His eyebrows indicated that he didn't have enough information to understand what she meant.

"The planet your species evolved on. The birthplace of humanity. The origin. This is what you came from," her toe nudged beyond the pavement, into the pebbly soil.

"I came from Reach," he said flatly.

"I know. But beyond that, back a few centuries. What would become you came from here," she said.

"I suppose so. If you put it like that, then the same is true for you. What's your point?" he wondered.

It was odd to have this sort of conversation with her. They'd rarely indulged in idle ponderings.

"I am a construct, more a creation of the mind than of matter. It's going to take a while for me to fully acclimate to this form. Things happen in this body without my awareness or control of its systems. Its ability to self-regulate without direct oversight is impressive but confusing," Cortana said as she looked down to her body.

She frowned because the cool wind and the thin shirt were making her nipples react again. Like dumb animals, they both helplessly took note of it. She was consoled that his body sometimes did pointless things too. She smiled sheepishly and shrugged. John shook his head briefly, as if to clear out the more primal mental processes and instead focus on what was needed.

"I wanted to talk to you about that. You being physically here is going to need some explanation. If ONI has any tech in this house, then at approximately 16:30 two days from now they'll know you're here," he said.

"We need to decide who I am to you and why you brought me home, right Karl?" Cortana asked.

He nodded. She already knew that he didn't like the name. There were lots of things he answered to but "Karl" didn't feel right, if it ever would. It sounded far too civilian, too meaningless. There was no history to "Karl." He suppressed a shudder. He'd had identity training. For the last week on base, he'd been habituating himself to answer to "Karl" and to ignore it when anyone said Master Chief or Sierra 117. That week of training didn't take too well because sometimes he wanted to hear somebody call him Chief.

"Much as I love hearing you use my real name, we need to restrict it to close personal use. We need to think of something else to call you," he said.

She nodded. She'd been giving it some thought.

"The most familiar common name for me would be Courtney but it's too close to reality for scrutiny. I don't like it much, either," she grimaced.

John nodded.

"You're right. Something else would be better. Not many people get to name themselves. I'm surprised you and Doctor Halsey didn't already have a name chosen for you. You'll need an official identity soon. I'm not comfortable leaving you without access or credits if I get called to duty," he said.

"You could have stayed with John. It's a common enough name," she said.

"No. John is like Courtney. It's too easy to link up with the truth. I want to try anonymity if I can," he frowned slightly at the trees in the distance.

She looked, but there was nothing there. He was only thinking, apparently.

"So. Karl and Candace? Karl and Vonda? Bernice? Julia? Tiffany?" she asked.

John made faces at each name and shook his head. She laughed. She didn't like any of those either.

"First off, let's not force anything. What if Karl and Ellen don't end up being 'Karl and Ellen'? I know we're close, but neither of us has ever had a relationship. What if we find out that we're better off as friends? What if, physically, we don't work out?" he pondered.

He looked her in the eyes and let her see his uncertainty. As soon as she got over the hurt of contemplating what he'd said, she was touched that he was opening up to her like this. That he was even talking about their future was an epic shift in how he thought about things. He'd always been focused on the objective. Everything was mission-related. That he was taking time to contemplate something human and personal was proof to her that he was serious about trying for a civilian life.

"John, if you don't want me you should tell me now," she said as evenly as she could.

He was right about them not being experienced at emotional relationships that could be considered anything near a romance. They cared deeply about each other and they both were aware of that. Just because they were important to each other didn't necessarily mean they would become a romantic couple. Cortana didn't want to force herself on him if he wanted to try life without her. There hadn't been time to ask him, before. They were always recorded, their interactions always scrutinized and saved to his files.

"I want you," John said simply.

The words could have been a lie, but his tone and the look on his face indicated otherwise. They weren't in the habit of lying to each other. They might have occasionally bent the truth for the sake of morale when things were grim, but that wasn't the case now.

"Talk to me," she said.

He took a deep breath and leaned his head back on the chair. He shut his eyes for a moment and then he rolled his head aside to look at her again. The look in his eyes was what she'd been missing by being in his head and not truly seeing him. She couldn't look away.

"No one knows me like you. You're the only one who's been there through most of it. I don't have to explain myself to you. The thought of starting over with another person… I don't want to do that," he said.

"So, you're just lazy," she smiled at him.

John tipped his head down a little and stared at her.

"I'm sorry. Maybe my humor isn't translating well," she murmured.

She waved a hand in a familiar gesture.

John looked her over for a moment then continued talking.

"It's not just familiarity. We've been there for each other. I trust you. Mostly," he said.

"Only mostly?" she asked.

"I'm sorry. I've seen too much. We both know how interests outside our own have the ability to twist things we should be able to put our faith in. If you want me to continue being honest with you then you need to know that part of me wonders if ONI sent you, if Halsey is using you to monitor me. But you should also know that part of me doesn't care if that's the case. I've been scrutinized almost since I was out of diapers, so I'm used to it. I plan to let this happen, however it will," John nodded at her, indicating whatever was between the two of them.

Cortana was silent for longer than she was accustomed to taking to think things through. Her brain was not as fast as her processor had been. There were more emotional reactions to take into account.

"I was going to promise you that I'm not an entity of ONI. I was going to promise that Halsey didn't put anything in me to monitor you. Those are my beliefs, but you're right. I don't completely trust my beliefs, either. The only certainty I can give you is that I'm not aware of any attempt to use me to monitor you. I don't want to be a tool of ONI or the UNSC. My only known goals are to be with you and to find out how to live whatever kind of life I'll have," she said quietly.

John watched her and nodded. She wasn't accustomed to being on the receiving end of that kind of look from him. He looked like he was deciding if she was a friendly or not. The look passed, and she began to realize how deep his suspicions went.

"I'm not here to report on you, John. I'm here because I don't want to live without you. It was my idea to do this so that I could be with you. Halsey helped me make it happen," she looked down at her body, then to him.

Still, he had that scrutinizing look turned on her.

"You were a construct. They say you weren't supposed to feel," he pointed out.

He wanted to ignore what they'd told him because he had inappropriate feelings for an AI. Augmented as he was, he was still human and fallible, able to be manipulated. He figured the more he made himself face reality, the better his mental health would be. Cortana shouldn't have been able to have feelings for him. So they told him.

"I can't explain it, other than corruption. That's how I was taught to think of emotion. As corruption, weakness, failure. I am corrupt. I am weak. I am a failure. I am," she admitted.

"You are," John said.

He'd been taught psychology and philosophy along with history, the sciences and the mathematics. He knew what she was saying.

"So you're a real girl," he simply said.

"And you're a real boy," she grinned.

A smile played at the corners of his mouth.

"I'm going to put aside my doubts and just live this, but if it goes horribly wrong I'm going to want blood. Starting with Halsey's," John told her.

"Understood. I don't think anyone wants you going after them. Especially Halsey. Are you aware that they fear you?" she asked.

"Are you sure? Why the hell would they fear me? I can see them fearing that I might make a mistake and make them look bad, but actual, personal fear? What evidence do you have for that?" he asked.

"It's not been admitted in any official capacity, but parsing the decisions they've made around and about you and scrutinizing their handling of you, I see evidence of fear," Cortana told him.

"After all I've done to serve them, to serve humanity, how can they fear me? What do they think I'll do? Who do they think I'll harm?" John wanted to know.

"It's nothing specific that they think you'll do. I believe it's more that they know you're intelligent and determined. You're older now. There's well over a thousand years of recorded military history, John. They know that young soldiers follow orders without much question or thought, but you now fit the profile of the type of men who lead revolutions. You're experienced and very capable. People would follow you if you presented yourself at the head of a cause," Cortana explained.

"I've never thought of myself that way. I get that they would categorize me as a potential threat when viewed in that light, but the most important element is missing. I have no motive. I'm not interested in personal power. I don't have an impassioned grudge against any person or governing body or ideology. They should know that from all of my files," he said.

"Yet they fear you. I can get the data points together and show you," Cortana offered.

"Let's hold off on that. I believe you, if you say so. Is there any reason I need to act on this information?" he asked.

"The only cause I could see for them to fear you is if someone is planning something big that they think you'd object to. History shows that men who are accustomed to crisis and leadership sometimes create crisis as an opportunity for leadership if they can't adapt to ordinary life," she said.

"I'm not that kind of man. I feel the desire for active duty but I've got enough empathy that I don't want crisis. People thrive better with peace. Humanity needs peace to recover. The human population hasn't been this low in five hundred years, Cortana. Nobody else needs to die. I'm not looking to be a hero or a villain. I'm trying to be Karl, here," John waved his hands at the land and the truck and the house.

"How do you like 'Nina'?" she asked.

"Nina sounds good. Nina who? What's your story?" John easily changed topics and was glad of it.

She'd put the idea of world domination in his head and he wasn't comfortable with it. He could probably accomplish it if he cared to. He knew himself and his abilities. He was also aware that he wouldn't want to be responsible for all that. Just watching the news gave him a headache. Humanity was a mess and always had been. Always would be. What sane person wanted to be at the helm of that? Not him.

"Nina's enough for now. I could be a refugee from a different system. When we figure it out Catherine can get me credible identification," she said.

John nodded. Tomorrow was soon enough to think of that.

They sat out in the fresh air until evening and enjoyed what the sunset looked like through a planetary atmosphere. They sat out for long enough that the cat came around from the side of the house. It looked to the boxes in the corner of the garage. It looked to John and its tail bristled into puffy annoyance. Then it jumped up to Cortana's lap and nudged at her hand for affection.

"I guess it needs a name. We'll call him Dammit," John said.

* * *

 **End Note: This has been fun and an exercise of my editing skills. My goal was to show John and Cortana meeting in the flesh and I've accomplished that. If I had the time and the inclination I'd write more chapters but life is moving on and I have other projects to work on.**

 **Scenes with them I'd write if I had the time are: Karl & Nina having a conversation with Halsey & the logic remnant of Cortana, them seeing over the AV comm that their 2 favorite people are beginning to figure out how to be together. Karl & Nina shopping in another town because they need clothes and things and Nina wants to try all the foods. And of course, them making love for the first time. **

**Anyone who's reading my other posted works will see that I'm repeating scenes and themes. It's embarrassing. I gotta work on that and be more original in what I write. Thanks for reading!**


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